Britain Lost 14,000 Pubs, a Quarter, in 13 Years

Source: Slashdot

Decline in Pub Numbers

Britain has lost more than 14,000 pubs since 2009, a decline from roughly 54,000 registered public houses and bars to under 40,000 by 2022, according to a new analysis of UK business register data by data analyst Lauren Leek. The North East, North West, Yorkshire and the Midlands lost 25 % to 30 % of their stock; London saw the smallest decline.

Predictors of Closure

Leek trained a random forest model on 49,840 pubs and found spatial isolation—how far a pub stood from its nearest neighbour—to be the single strongest predictor of closure.

• Median nearest‑neighbour distance for surviving pubs: ~280 m
• Median nearest‑neighbour distance for closed pubs: ~640 m

Each closure pushes remaining pubs further into isolation, a dynamic Leek calls a “spatial death spiral.”

Ownership and Debt

Much of that isolation traces to ownership. Stonegate, Britain’s largest pub company and a holding of PE firm TDR Capital, carries over $4 billion in debt from its 2019 leveraged acquisition of Ei Group. PE‑backed and overseas‑owned companies now control roughly a quarter to a third of all British pubs.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.