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Last orders for Sevenoaks pubs? |
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Page 2 of 7
A recent survey by the trade magazine Morning Advertiser reported an
average slump in annual profits of 14.9 per cent, with more than half
of pubs predicting a fall in their turnover in the year ahead. The
smoking ban gets most of the blame, with 68 per cent of landlords
saying it has hit their trade.
Iain Dalgleish of the West Kent branch of CAMRA, the Campaign for Real
Ale, says pubs that never served food have been the worst affected.
Some landlords who invested in food to beat the ban are now regretting
what has turned out to be a wrong business decision. And he sees signs
that the expected increase in visits by non-smokers who lost the
pub-going habit because they didn’t like the smell of tobacco has
failed to materialise.
But even before the ban, Sevenoaks pubs were disappearing. Since I
moved here in 1991, the town has lost the Railway and Bicycle and the
Farmers by the station, and the Railway Tavern at Bat and Ball. The
first two have been demolished and are awaiting redevelopment as
upmarket flats, while Ferraris and Lamborghinis have replaced barrels
of ale on the site of the Railway Tavern.
In the town centre the Oak
Tap, where generations of Sevenoaks School teachers used to discuss the
sins of their pupils, is now a private home, while the Vine and the
Dorset Arms are now restaurants. In northern Sevenoaks drinkers have
said goodbye to the Camden Arms (now a restaurant), and to the
Compasses and the Man of Kent, both converted to houses.
Out in the villages, there have also been closures, though in many
places two or three pubs survive where butchers and local shops have
given up the battle. It’s clear that at least in Sevenoaks, pub
closures have been accelerated not by economic decline but by changing
lifestyles, rising affluence and booming property prices.
What’s also blindingly obvious is that people who don’t patronise pubs can hardly complain when they disappear.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 30 April 2008 )
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