Northamptonshire pub landlord says industry is ‘under attack’ and calls business rates hike ‘a bullet to the head’

Luke Bavester, landlord of the Old Red Lion in Kislingbury and The Sheaf in West Haddon, has spoken out about the pressures facing pubs as business rates rise, and why a pint might be getting a bit more expensive.

Luke told the Chronicle and Echo it has been successive Conservative and now the Labour governments that have not listened to the pub industry’s calls for more help, saying the “silence is deafening”.

In a video posted on social media, the landlord said: “It feels very much like the pub trade specifically is under attack. We have massive staff costs, we have massive taxation costs comparative to other industries and we also have always had small profits because people want eating out to be reasonably priced, obviously everyone does.

“The problem being that the most recent business rates hikes just felt like a bullet to the head.

“I’m really lucky, my pubs previous to these hikes were zero rated so I paid nothing because they all fell under small business rates relief. However, that’s now not the case.

“The Sheaf has gone up a sort of tiny amount and doesn’t really deserve a chat at the table at the moment, but the Red Lion, what is payable is going from zero pounds to nearly £7,000 a year.

“So that’s £700 a month I need to find, which at the end of the day is not going to kill me, but when combined with quick maths, paying nearly £60 grand a year in VAT, hundreds of thousands of pounds in staff costs, all of those things just mean that my margins are going to become tiny.

“I don’t want to put my prices up and I don’t want it to be six quid for a pint. I want everything to be reasonable for people to come and eat and drink and have a good time and see their mates.

“This is why there’s so much pressure on the government from our industry. But it isn’t just pubs. It’s hotels, it’s cafés, it’s indoor play areas for kids, it’s shops, everyone is affected by this business rates sort of scandal as such.

“That’s why it’s really important that the public try not to get sick of it and try to support us. In the end it’s all about us trying to keep providing the public with reasonably priced spaces to come and enjoy.

“We just need you to bear with us. It looks like the government are going to do something, but we need to keep the pressure up really and hopefully we can win.”

According to national reports, the government is now expected to announce measures to ease the planned increases in business rates for pubs in England, after pressure from landlords and industry groups. The Treasury has said extra temporary support will be introduced to help pubs with higher bills, following criticism, like Luke’s, over sharp rises in rateable values and the phasing out of pandemic-era reliefs.

Northants Labour MPs Lucy Rigby and Mike Reader have both been contacted for comment. Northants Tory MP Sarah Bool has also been contacted for comment.