Controversy over latest issue of The Good Pub Guide
It must be the silly season. Or why has it not taken very long for the latest edition of the UK pub-goers’ Bible to become controversial?
When The Good Pub Guide 2014 was published at the end of August, its editorial comments about the industry immediately caused a storm of protest.
According to the guide, which is edited by Alisdair Aird and Fiona Stapley, up to 4,000 pubs across the country will close in the next year. The editors forecast that between 2,500 and 4,000 of the 49,500 public houses in the UK will be forced to shut and even say it is "high time that they closed their doors" to make way for more energetic and dynamic new licensees.
The reason they should shut down is that they are "stuck in the 1980s" and offer indifferent drink and food. While the closures may be bad news for staff and customers, it was high time that "bad pubs" went out of business, giving visionary and energetic licensees a chance to open new ones.
Luckily, the guide predicts that more than 1,000 new pubs will open next year, often in former hostelries that have been shut for years.
More than 4,700 pubs are featured in The Good Pub Guide and those with full entries are required to pay a fee, which helps to cover research and production costs. To buy a copy of the guide costs GBP 10.
The guide’s callous stance has not only been attacked by licensees, who said it was a "sweeping statement" to dismiss pubs that are forced to close as "bad pubs".
Also Roger Protz, editor of the Campaign for Real Ale’s 2014 Good Beer Guide, publically criticised the editors, calling them "absolutely heartless". "The editors were clearly trying to create quick headlines to sell their book and they have been successful, but they are not helping their own industry. I find that morally repugnant, saying pubs deserve to close when they are talking about people who will lose their jobs, premises and livelihoods," Mr Protz told media.
He added: "How bizarre that a book called the Good Pub Guide should welcome the closure of as many as 4,000 pubs. Pubs need to be saved, not thrown on the scrapheap."
According to CAMRA’s estimates, over 1,000 pubs are likely to shut down this year.
