After years of running The Langton Arms, I have never known things to be this bad. In 2004 we suffered a devastating fire.
Rebuilding after that should have been the hardest challenge of my career – but it wasn’t.
We survived COVID and being forced to shut our doors, and we survived the shock of energy price hikes following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (our electricity bill alone jumped from £25,000 to £68,000 in a single year). Realistically, we should have closed then. We were on our knees.
Over the past six weeks, the British Institute of Innkeeping and our suppliers have urged us to write to our MPs, pleading for meaningful support for the hospitality industry. The truth is the numbers no longer add up. We pay:
- 20% VAT, while supermarkets pay around 2%
- High business rates
- National Insurance
- The ever-increasing living wage
- Rising food/drink/energy costs
The system is stacked against small independent pubs and restaurants. When I asked our MP two years ago why no support was coming, I was told that ‘businesses that close are not considered “well run” by the government’.
That response still devastates me.
Recently, a local resident even suggested I invite the Hotel Inspector to ‘tell me what I was doing wrong’.
It shows how disconnected people are from the reality: this is not about poor management – the entire hospitality sector is collapsing. Our small village now has many Airbnbs, all competing directly with our six rooms – yet they pay no business rates, no VAT, and no commercial waste or staffing costs.
The council tells me the government is “trying to sort it”, but by the time anything changes it will be too late for many of us.
Across the country, pubs are standing empty, boarded up, and left to rot. These buildings once held communities together. They were – and still should be – part of our national identity.
Instead, we are witnessing a national catastrophe.
The government, past and present, has failed to recognise the value of a good community pub.
If action doesn’t come soon, many more irreplaceable businesses will vanish forever.
Barbara Cossins
