Some 534 pubs have announced their intention to close down since January, data from the Campaign for Real Ale, analysed by The Telegraph, have previously shown.
Of these, seven are fighting to reopen, while more than 153 are seeking a new owner or tenant.
In her autumn Budget, the Chancellor announced that Covid-era business rates relief for the hospitality sector would end in April, after it was gradually scaled back.
She has since climbed down on business rate changes, which threatened to leave some with their tax bills doubling overnight.
Combined with the burdens of the employers’ National Insurance increase, an increase in alcohol duty, and a rise in the minimum wage, the sector warned it faced potential ruin.
While landlords have largely welcomed Ms Reeves’s reversal, the British Beer and Pub Association, which represents more than 20,000 members, warned that the sector “continues to face huge challenges” and called on the Government to go further.
‘Most of the time we hear bad stuff’
Earlier on Wednesday, the Prince of Wales visited Pecan, a community charity in Peckham.
While there, he spoke about how the 24-hour news cycle and mobile phone use are partially to blame for driving rising depression and loneliness.
He said: “With everyone’s phones now you can get so much news, that actually it completely overwhelms you in terms of being able to process this and that.
“And unfortunately most of the time we hear bad stuff, so you can reinforce someone into the bad place and depression.
“You reinforce innocently [just] looking at your phone and the news so I can see that it’s overwhelming when you feel like it’s just negativity all the time.”
During the visit, he met with staff members, volunteers and Pecan clients – many of whom have escaped homelessness and poverty through the charity’s services.
After hearing from Stella, who told him how she had been sleeping on the streets before the Pecan team found her in 2017, Prince William said: “It’s amazing what you guys do. It puts people’s lives back on track again.”
The Prince added: “This feels like a very happy family. But that family point and that caring is so important at the moment – it’s the magic ingredient of a really good charity. It’s a hard dynamic to get that right, but when you do get it right it’s gold dust.”
He also discussed his and the Princess of Wales’s donation to the local Southwark Foodbank, operated by Pecan just off Peckham High Street, after it was robbed in September 2024.
The couple donated to help replenish stock after £3,000 of food and hygiene products were taken, as well as a laptop.
Speaking about the incident on Wednesday, William said: “I was reading all the stories about it and … I was trying to picture where you were and how that all happened because we were looking for a while to try and see how we could help and your article came across my phone and I was like ‘OK’.”
He also paid a visit to the warehouse of the foodbank and met two volunteers, one of whom helped him to pack one of the food parcels that gets distributed locally.
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.telegraph.co.uk ’
