‘It just won’t work’: Pub and bar owners consider calling time until next year as fears grow over socially distanced future

While the nation hopes to spend at least the closing moments of a post-lockdown summer in beer gardens and bars, businesses are questioning whether they will be able to reopen before the new year. Vincent Wood reports

While the present comes with its own crises, a future in which bustling social hubs must socially distance is stoking fears that businesses may have to look to relaunching not in the summer, but in the new year (Reuters)

Britishness has always been a loosely defined concept – an amalgam of cultures and classes, of dark histories and golden eras, of twee politeness and punk-like rage. However, through it all, pubs have been an irrefutable element of the national identity. Any country can lay claim to pies and passive aggression, but few have the same relationship with their public houses that the UK has.

So when the coronavirus crisis saw the country grind to a halt, the potential impact on late-night rounds and afternoon beer gardens became a matter of national concern – both for the nation’s wealth and its people. On a national level, the hospitality industry is the nation’s fourth largest employer, contributing more than £54bn to the UK economy with individual firms offering millions in business rates to the nation’s coffers. On an individual level, people like a pint and a catch up, especially when we’ve been forced to stay away from our friends and loved ones for weeks at a time.

“The reason that you go to a pub, and the reason that you go to a restaurant, is to sit and enjoy the company of others,” Tim Foster, owner of the Yummy Pub company, told The Independent. “Mostly those that you don’t see very often – so you do go out with your family, granted, but also we’re the conduit for people to meet up, have a beer and chat.”