Dying for the pub

Now, we've all heard about the death of the traditional British boozer, haven't we?

Every few months or so the tabloids print off the latest statistics about the number of pubs that have closed in the last X many number of months.

The most recent I was able to find was from CAMRA themselves who - back in April - found that 300 pubs had closed in 6 months. That's 12 pubs every single week, they tell us.

Shall I do the 'stats' bit?

So, there are around 650 parliamentary wards in the country. So that's one pub per ward per year.

Nottingham itself has around 300 pubs in the city centre alone, with 903 in the county in total. And that's just Nottinghamshire - in the country there are between 50,000 and 60,000 depending upon where you obtain your statistics. So it's hardly a headline.

But why are there so many pubs closing?

Over-supply is one problem.

In the village where I used to live there were originally three pubs. The village had a population of around 300 people. That is a massive over-supply, and therefore no surprise that over time two of the three pubs have become restaurants. Now, yes - it is a riverside village and in the summer month (yes, that isn't a typo) the bars were very popular with walkers, boaters and motorcyclists. But outside of that month they limped along, barely covering costs at times.

Similarly as I walk down the road on my way to the train station I pass three pubs that have closed down. Why? Because they are all right next to each other. And this is outside the 'city' envelope - they are on an arterial route in, but nowhere near the main social or accommodation conurbations. There are very few houses around. How on earth the small handful of houses that there were within the catchment of these three pubs sustained them for so long I will never know, but it is clear that the profits hadn't been substantial enough to undertake a refurbishment for many years.

And this is a second reason - change. The reason there are no houses around is that the areas behind the 'front row' on the route have become industrial and business premises. Whilst the area around has developed, the island enclave has stubbornly refused to adapt, and therefore survive.

For some pubs, that is part of their charm. The quaint, old boozer where you stick to the carpet. And, as ever, it is about knowing your customers. Whilst the city centre bar may benefit substantially from a massive refurbishment into a super stylish cocktail bar; in the suburbs or out in the sticks the money will not produce an effective return, and - worse still - risks alienating a sitting consumer base, particularly if the prices rise to reflect the 'exclusivity' that the new décor demands, either to cover the cost of the refurbishment, or to attract a whole new clientèle.

And yes, society has changed manyfold. Whereas before these tiny, cornerhouse pubs used to sustain themselves with a regular, daily consumer base; that consumer base has aged, dwindled and been eroded by other economic pressures.

Whilst the tendency of the industry is to bemoan higher costs, rising taxes and the like, they have to acknowledge that yes, to a degree people are drinking at home because it is cheaper; but more that the pub is an inherently social beast. If people want socialising, they will go out; however when finances are tight they will go out less. Believe me, I have seen this second-hand after a friend of mine lost his job and stopped going to the pub. He was craving going out - that is 'going out', not just 'a drink'. He didn't replace going out with drinking at home; he just did anything expensive a lot less.

To a degree there has been a movement towards more drinking at home, but rather than simply because of the rising taxes it is more about a wider change to the pubbing and clubbing landscape.

Whilst people were up in arms about 24 hour drinking and such like, the horror stories never actually occurred. But what did occur was a wider cultural change: people just went out a little later. Pubs and clubs actually were not that bothered about staying open 24 hours; they just wanted to stay open later. And whereas before if you wanted to carry on drinking after 11pm you had to do it in a club, these days a lot of bars (certainly on a Friday or Saturday night) are open until 1 or 2am. There's suddenly no desperate rush to get the pints in before getting kicked out at 11:30; suddenly you can be more relaxed. If anything, it has shifted the 'drinking at home' aspect from cracking open the cans when you got home at 11:30pm, to cracking them open whilst you have a more leisurely time getting ready to go out.

Where as once I would go out somewhere between 8 and 9, because of these changes, I don't go out until later. But that suits me better: I don't get home until 7pm.

And in the modern age where we commute further and for longer that suits. Whereas once the boozer was half-way between the factory or office and home, these days we are having to drive back, so stopping off is not only inconvenient, but it is unacceptable. And bear in mind that the catchment areas for workplaces these days are considerably greater, the 'local' pub is quite probably well off a large majority of the workers' way home.

And there has been a tendency to go out less during the week anyway, again fuelled by this change in the workforce. People have become very much more aware that they have to drive the following morning; therefore are more reluctant to drink much of an evening. And with the longer commutes and later arrivals, so time is an even more precious commodity, and the moments at home are all the more valuable.

Nottingham's gay scene is a classic example of all these things going wrong.

For a start there are too many bars to be sustained by the community. Unless there was a vast interest in travelling consumers - unless the scene established itself as a destination to which people should travel - there is simply not the customer-base for the number of bars that there are.

And then they are all sitting on top of each other; or alternatively too far scattered. It may sound contradictory, but where they all have the same customer base, are all competing in the same manner, to have them all so close to each other is counter-productive. But then if they are too far apart, people simply won't walk between them. One of the bars at the very periphery of the scene - the New Foresters - is suffering from this. As the scene gradually shifted towards the Lace Market, it has found it more and more difficult to encourage people to walk the half a mile up the road.

If you look at densely concentrated scenes, then the bars don't directly compete. Look to Manchester, or to Birmingham and you will see that each bar has its own customer base, its own unique selling point. One bar is for muscles, one is for bears, one is for cheap and dirty, one is for camp. Nottingham gay scene doesn't do that - all the bars seem to squabble over the same customers. It isn't the same for Nottingham pubs generally; elsewhere in the city there is a very healthy nightlife. But the gay scene does itself no justices.

No sooner does a new bar open up, trying to establish itself with a particular offer or evening, the existing bars vociferously attack, undercutting and undermining the new(ish) offering.

And for all of these reasons, the gay bars in Nottingham seem to shut down and reopen with all the best intentions on a frequent basis.