Why Are Britain’s Great Pubs Going Bust...?

We all know that pubs are closing down at an alarming rate, but it's not just the shit ones, some of those closing have been around for centuries and offer an excellent service.

An example of this is the Hare and Hounds in the Lake District - this was well liked, well reviewed, and run by people who cared, they did everything right, but that wasn't enough, and after 400 years this historical landmark closed.

Pubs Are More Than Businesses

Pubs these days are not just bar stools and pints....

They’re where people gather for club meetings and community events. They host bingo, quizzes, and local get-togethers. They give people jobs. In villages, they can be one of the last places where you bump into neighbors and catch up face-to-face.

As small towns keep losing banks, post offices, and little shops, the pub sticks around, at least until it doesn’t. Losing one feels like the last piece of village life quietly slipping away.

The Cost Crunch

The Hare & Hounds didn’t close because nobody wanted to go, rather it closed because the rising costs defeated it.

Energy Bills doubled in a short period, but then wages increased, the cost of loans, and the cost of raw materials. namely food.

So being popular isn’t enough anymore.

The Long Slide

This isn’t a brand-new crisis. Pubs have been vanishing for decades. Since 2020, England and Wales have lost over 12,000 pubs. People’s habits have changed over the years.

Younger people just don’t drink as much as their parents and grandparents did. There are more ways to spend your evenings such as a Netflix binge, catching up on social media, playing games, trying out new restaurants, or just having a coffee. And if you do fancy a drink at home, supermarkets make it a lot cheaper than heading to the pub.

And Covid REALLY got people out of the habit of going down the pub!

Rallying the Community

The story’s not over for The Hare & Hounds yet. Locals are now trying to buy the place and run it together.

Across the UK, over 200 pubs are now owned by their communities. These places run on a different energy—local people put up the money, help out behind the bar, and make decisions together. Any profits are invested back into the area. The goal isn’t to make shareholders rich, it’s to keep the doors open and the community together.

This won’t save every pub. But it shows people still care enough to dig in and fight for these places.

Final Thoughts

The story of The Hare & Hounds isn’t just about a single pub shutting down. It’s about mounting costs, shifting habits, and how much harder it’s become to keep shared spaces alive.

Most pubs aren’t closing because people don’t want them. They’re closing because the maths don't work.

Keep losing these places, and the UK won’t just lose spots to grab a pint—you’ll lose some of the few true community institutions left. The places where people argue, laugh, celebrate, and check in on one another—all the stuff that quietly stitches a place together.

And once those places are gone, it’s almost impossible to bring them back.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/ng-interactive/2026/may/07/now-the-village-is-dead-its-awful-why-was-one-of-britains-best-pubs-forced-to-close