Very Last Orders

Image: © Glyn Baker Taken: 31 Mar 2012

This is the scene in the last few hours of trading of Image in Buckfastleigh. The King's Arms has joined the ranks of the hundreds of pubs a year that are closing for the last time. Since 2004 there has been a net loss of 7800 pubs in the UK, leading to 78,000 jobs also being lost. Ruinous rents charged by the pub companies & the smoking ban have played a part in this. However rates of tax and duty that discriminate against wholesome ale sold in pubs and favour cheap imported wine, spirits and industrially produced "chemical" Cider sold at rock bottom prices in supermarkets are effectively killing British pubs which are so often at the heart of community life. During 2012 the Campaign for Real Ale raised a 100,000 signature E-Petition. That trigged debate in Parliament about the "Beer Duty Escalator", which they claim is part of the reason pubs such as this cease to be viable businesses. This was only the third E-Petition to reach the 100,000 target. In the 2013 budget the "Beer Duty Escalator" was scrapped and a penny knocked of the rate of duty. No hope of a cut in beer prices but at least they won't go up as fast. I suppose the moral of the story is.... Sometimes if enough people make enough fuss you can nudge government policy in the direction you want.

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