It seems like the taxes only go up while the services get worse in the UK, although I’ve been away for 5 years now so maybe things improved.
Rateable value is based on what the market prices would be to rent that space. So, somebody is doing nicely apparently.
It doesn't benefit a town if rent is so expensive that their businesses shut down.
https://www.ismypubfucked.com/pub/11447801200
> the Inklings, a literary group including J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, started meeting at The Lamb and Flag.
You jest.
There’s time for some party to sort themselves out before the next election is due (Aug 2029).
For anyone not in the know, UK postcodes are made up of two parts: a general area (the outward code) and then a more specific one (the inward code.) Generally speaking a postcode + house number will be good enough to get a letter delivered to the right place, though the sorting office might not be too happy with you...
The format [0] is roughly: AB12 3CD, though the number of letters/numbers on the left side can vary a bit. As far as I know the second set of numbers is always 1 digit though, so that's how you can easily split the two sides of it to format it nicely. There's a couple of special ones that break the rules though.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcodes_in_the_United_Kingdo...
A full postcode is often much less than a single street.
Picking something at random stick “SW15 6DZ” into Google maps and you’ll see it only covers 6 buildings (most are individual houses but some are split into flats). According to the Royal Mail address finder site there are only 12 unique delivery addresses that share that postcode. The Western half of that road has 12 or so full postcodes for only 100 houses.
A full postcode and one other bit of information can often be enough to uniquely identify someone.
If a US 5 digit zipcode is roughly equivalent to the “general area” part of a UK postcode (94107 <=> SW15) then the full UK postcode is like the 9 digit US Zip+4 format where the extra 4 digits narrow location down to a block, part of a block or even a specific building.
I’ve lived somewhere in SW18/SW15/SW19 for the last 30 years. Having not grown up in London I can’t imagine living anywhere else. Apparently many other bits of London (North, East, central, etc) are good too but I’m not ready for change.
If they had made this a .co.uk rather than a .com, there would be no confusion.
That way it can be considered that the food is part of the price of the drink.
*Editting with a point: Perhaps everyone assumes a local audience.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/personal-finance/finance-expe... shows how little pubs make per pint, very sad.
If anyone's curious about cask beer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ud_eTwY4nc&list=PLyDTS7ZG3z... is a very interesting youtube video series by The Craft Beer Channel.
I knew java was good for something
What are the margins on a Codeacola?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8e57dexly1o
> In her November Budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves scaled back business rate discounts that have been in force since the pandemic from 75% to 40% - and announced that there would be no discount at all from April. That, combined with big upward adjustments to rateable values of pub premises, left landlords with the prospect of much higher rates bills.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_rates_in_England
> Properties are assessed in a rating list with a rateable value, a valuation of their annual rental value on a fixed valuation date using assumptions fixed by statute. Rating lists are created and maintained by the Valuation Office Agency, a UK government executive agency.
You pay a percentage of the hypothetical rent as tax. There is a lower rate if you're a small business, and there are also tax reliefs for various reasons (charity, partial building occupation, etc.)
But pubs have been in trouble for quite some time: https://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Article/2025/05/27/numbe...
Pubs have high costs, small margins and customers are extremely price-sensitive. What pubs are generally asking for is more types of relief, because what we tend to see is pubs close, people in the area become more isolated, and the building remains empty for years thereafter. [] Pubs appreciated the post-COVID relief, but tax rates are about to shoot up.
[] fun fact: if the building is vacant, its landlord must pay rates as if it's 100% occupied. Hence this brazen scheme where a man puts a snail farm in every room so you can pay the rates of an agricultural enterprise: https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2025/dec/04/...
Many deaths were postponed because their taxes were reduced due to Covid. Those taxes are now returning to normal levels. This will result in a glut of deaths, as pubs that were just hanging on go under.
The policy question is, basically, do we want to subsidize pubs because they're part of our national culture, even though we don't use them nearly as much as we used to?
But pubs are a weird place to draw the line.
Without this more pubs could exist. So I don’t think it’s a case of subsidising as much as removing the disincentive.
Beer was far more expensive 25 years ago - £1.60 in 2000 in the student pub when I first started buying my own beer, that was about half an hour at minimum wage.
On the cost side: Wages are higher, energy costs more, rent is higher (because if the pub can't operate the owner can get planning permission to convert it to a private dwelling and sell it for £600k rather than making £12k a year in rent)
On the demand side: People are healthier and drink less. It's nowhere near as acceptable to go out for a few pints at lunch time. People can't drive to a rural pub.
Yeah but then you've to drink at spoons.
That, combined with big upward adjustments to rateable values of pub premises, left landlords with the prospect of much higher rates bills.
Being a .com as opposed to a .co.uk, you can't even tell from the domain.
If you use a .com for something that is specific to a country/region that is not the US, the onus is on you to clarify. That's the problem here. If you're not going to make it ".uk", then you should be making that obvious on the homepage.
If you are from the US, the only nation who doesn't frequently use a national TLD, the onus is on you to judge if a site is commercial, US-specific, global, or something else entirely.
People outside the USA, i.e. the majority of the world, often experience the opposite to what you've described: the tiresome implicit assumption that everything on the internet is US-related by default. It's not.
There is a reason the prime meridian goes through Greenwich and it isn’t because we asked nicely.
The only big red letters are "THAT NEEDS YOU".
Lots of Pubs in the UK are closing down in recent years. Pubs have traditionally been a big part of socialising in the UK. I don't drink anymore so I don't bother unless I am having a pub lunch on a Friday.
I know a lot of bars in my area also are places to play board games nowadays.
Somehow Fine
Feeling It
Struggling
Fucked
Absolutely FuckedWhen ordered by RV£ there are 43703 entries with data. Most negative RV£ change is -£137,500 for 33 Main Road
When ordered by RV% there are 43303 entries with data. Most negative RV% change is -87.0% for PAVILLION HOTEL
Maybe even a Union Jack in the corner as a background image, or something.
Neither American nor from the UK, but I knew what this was about because it's possible to go online and seek out information. Neat.
What I didn't do was become some entitled see you next tuesday and complain that a .com should be reserved for the american audience and the site should use a .co.uk – As if american businesses don't utilise foreign TLDs to create cutesy URLs. Maybe now is a good time to note that the fashionable .AI TLD belongs to Anguilla, a British territory.
It's not until I get to checkout I realise they do not ship to my country or want to deal with me.
Why?
I'm not saying this is good or bad or justified or not, just saying what the conventions are.
co.uk, com.au, com.mx, com.my and co.jp exist for example, but I have never heard of a co.fr, com.it or co.de or org.dk
Bottom line: there is no real convention
It's just basic communications skills, and honestly decency, to describe what a thing is and who it's for.
Maybe someone who isn't the target audience still wants to learn about the thing? Which this site provides no way of doing. That's the problem. Why choose to be inaccessible like that, when it's so easy to add a couple of works and links?
> or poke around out of curiosity
You mean like by following links that are supplied? Because that's my complaint: there are no links.
What is the main country where dying pubs is such a big subject?
For f**ks sake I am not from UK yet it is easy to understand what it is all about from context and language. And I wasn't even aware of that tax change.
Pure US arrogance.
How should I know? That's the point. It might as easily be Ireland for all I know. Or maybe pubs are dying in Boston or something?
> For f*ks sake I am not from UK yet it is easy to understand what it is all about from context and language.
I'm happy you're so smart. Not all of us are so lucky, I guess.
> Pure US arrogance.
Who said anything about the US? You know there are people from a lot of other countries who speak English too? If your concern is arrogance, it seems like it's your own that perhaps needs to be dialed back a little.
Suggesting that communication can be clearer isn't a form of arrogance. To the contrary, it's something that comes out of empathy, identifying how communication could help more readers/listeners.
I just read your account name.
It's self-centered to want others to communicate well to you when they aren't attempting to communicate with you in the first place.
You want to learn about the thing? You have the entire internet at your fingertips. Click search bar, type "pub rates," boom, thousands of news stories.
If you want to know what's going on, put in the bare minimum effort to find out. If you don't care then ignore it and move on.
Pubs as social gathering places are critical to exist and keep alive.
Drinking neurotoxins that have a lot of destruction and damage, maybe not so much.
In the UK pubs are extremely different as well than the US. This site is for the UK, since it's asking for a postal code, among other signs. The UK also I believe has last call at 11 PM, which helps fuel the binge drinking before 11 PM and the wild public afterwards. In North America, last call for alcohol can be 1-3 AM, and people generally aren't in a rush to fuel up to blast off.
Most pubs now have much longer hours (some even 24/7) although they choose their opening hours based on how busy they are or think they will be. The local councils will take into account local considerations and limit individual pubs as they see fit.
Hopefully they were able to see the negative effect, realise the mistake and reverse the decision.
Scotland, Northern Ireland & the rest of the world play by different rules.
2023 Rateable Value £13,800
2026 Rateable Value £12,250
Change -£3,300(-23.9%)
I guess "no" would be the answer then.
Nearest town has 3 pubs where rates are going down significantly and 4 where they're going up. I wonder why, is it that the previous setup was unfair to those who are seeing their rates going down?
The pub I do go to each week is seeing rates going up +£3,300. That's not as big an impact from yet another inflation busting minimum wage increase.
However the much bigger concern is that people will be scared to drive there. Currently you can drive there, have a pint, and then go home, and be confident you're not triggering the limit. They're reducing this limit, which means no more trip to the pub.
I'm sure it's fine in big cities where people live in walking distance.
Sooooo yes happy with pubs closures.
Pubs are often the centre of a community, especially small ones. Not even small towns. Traditionally they have been centered around drinking, but this is changing. Much like libraries had to adapt to falling reading rates, pubs have had to adapt to falling alcohol consumption.
The hard part of this is that food and wage costs are often covered by alcohol costs, though where I'm from the government has exercised vice taxes to make this less tenable. More customers doesn't necessarily mean that much more profit, for a host of reasons.
I hope pubs find a way forward.
Source for my rambling: worked in and managed pubs for a decade. They're not just for heavy drinkers.
I wonder if there's an equivalent use case in the US.
Fighty customers, crap beer, odd opening hours, and half their food menu is off ("sorry mate, we've got no cheese"). Oh, and now their credit card terminal prompts customers for a tip!
I love a good pub, but most are crap.
(Yes I tried disabling all the dark settings, no difference)
> Based on VOA data (Nov 2025) which is often inaccurate. Many pubs have also closed since then.
I do not drink. I am half Irish and half German.
Drinking is a _very_ weird cultural artifact from our past. It doesn't improve your life, it has been scientifically proven to not 'help you relax', and there may in fact be no safe amount of alcohol to drink; all the pop-sci headlines that say 'one glass of wine a week may improve your health' are really about studies that put the safe max at one glass per week.
From what I can tell, the UK is no longer subsidizing what is effectively a criminal enterprise that is centuries old.
None of them have ever explained why alcohol, or any drug use, needs to be part of third spaces.
Society is losing third spaces, largely due to unchecked capitalism eroding the society it serves... but 'pubs' are just another form of rent-seeking by landlords. It has been proven without a doubt that third spaces as a commercial venture is ultimately non-functional, yet that is what pubs and bars have always been, and now they are dying out.
Commercial pubs have existed for hundreds of year. But drinking doesn’t have to be commercial. In Berlin where I live there’s a non-profit hacker space that has a bar with at-cost drinks. It’s also perfectly legal to buy a beer and sit in the park. And of course, nothing is better than having friends over for a wine tasting.
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Distilling what I remember about an entire book I read a couple years ago into a HN comment is difficult, but one of the more salient notes from it is this: Adult humans are naturally suspicious of others and slow to trust, particularly those they have no existing points of connection to. In contrast - children have much lower inhibitions in this sense and are much better at this.
Alcohol, in moderation, is one of the most effective tools in humanity's arsenal to more easily socialize with and create trust with total strangers.
The "reduction of inhibitions" we are all aware of in terms of being a risk of making negative choices, also serves to greatly reduce inhibition of the average adult to new interactions and experiences.
It is difficult to achieve this result in adults otherwise, especially in terms of a single activity with low investment required in time, money, facilities, and commitment.
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It is likely that as we transitioned from a society where adult encounters with total strangers were rare (tribal/village) to common (urban) that alcohol played a pretty significant role in creating the social cohesion for it.
It is not at all clear that we have found some successful alternative to this, and we may well find that even with all the documented downsides of it, we're worse off as a society for moving away from it.
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Again, this is my recollection of a book I read a couple years back - don't take this word for word. I will also note that it's not all rosy and has some thoughts on the types of consumption we should probably discourage as well and the general risk/reward of alcohol in society.
Third places need to have some kind of draw, else nobody will show up. "If you build it, they will come" is for the movies. In the real world you need to have a compelling reason to have others come in your door. Space alone is not sufficient to establish a third space.
That draw doesn't necessarily have to be alcohol (or another drug), but it was the thing that many people used to want. Threatening use of a third space by fear of the wrath of a mighty deity only buys you one day out of the week, I'm afraid.
You're quite right that people no longer want alcohol like they used to. Why nurse a hangover when you can get the same dopamine rush scrolling through TikTok at home from the comfort of your couch? This means that many third spaces of yesteryear no longer serve a purpose, and as you call out, have closed as a result.
Which is all well and good, I guess, but some segment of the population still wish that there were third spaces for them to exist in. Trouble is that they've never been able to find anything as compelling as alcohol used to be across large swaths of the population, making a different kind of third space of the same scale a complete no-go. Trying to salvage the remaining alcohol-centric third places is the only path they can see to try and relive that glory.
Of course there are plenty of alcohol-free (or at least not alcohol focused) third spaces that revolve around niche interests, but these are generally not seen as a good fit for those who don't have that particular niche interest. Alcohol was historically so successful as the foundation for a third space because, once upon a time, nearly everyone was interested in it, bringing everyone in the door.
However, I am, as I said, an American, but also a Millennial. For many Millennials, drinking isn't a social activity, it is a form of quiet shame. We saw our parents and aunts and uncles and grandparents destroy their lives because of alcoholism, we lost friends and family because of being victims of drunk drivers, we saw people die of complications of a lifetime of drinking.
A lot of us simply chose not to repeat those mistakes as those mistakes effect the people around us in grave ways.
If anything, drinking is an anti-social activity, even if you do it entirely socially.
I just don't see the point in keeping it around.
Whilst this is definitely not what's it's like, this quaint video is all about the lineage of the pub in the UK, and explains the third-spaceness of them, which I'd argue still exists[1].
Pubs are so important for our communities in the UK, whether that's watching the game, seeing a friend's band, celebrating a birthday or just catching up after work.
Many of the parts of my life have been lived in a pub. If it's criminal, I'd happily be locked up. Or maybe lock me in, a sadly rarer occurrence these days.
If someone opened a social space with maybe a kitchen that let you pay by the hour to hang out, credit for kitchen orders. All the other bar/pub accoutrements gaming (darts, pool, shuffleboard, pinball, whatnot), sports on the tv, whatever .. I still don't think people will go for it.
I think the only non-boozy option that comes to mind is the small town diner but those are thin on the ground.
how so? I go to a climbing gym and it is a pretty social (and, of course, healthy) activity... crossfit is not my thing but apparently it is similar for more traditional workouts. to the extent you can consider a cycling or running club a "space" those are similar. dog parks for dog owners, playgrounds for parents, etc...
Unfortunately I haven't found any place that cracks that problem in america, especially into the later hours. There isn't really a place for people to hang out and socialize without it being a boozy bar. As someone who doesn't really enjoy drinking I don't even really want to go to boardgame/chess/trivia nights at bars because I feel like I'm freeloading. ( I imagine any given bar patron is having 1-3 drinks per hour and potentially ordering some food if that is an option. I might order some food and have a soda...)
I assume part of the problem being that alcohol has the helpful side effect of greasing the wheels socially. Coffee houses that are open late are generally library like affairs, a lot of people sitting around on laptops or with books, any attempt to start a more social night is, in my experience, refused because of this.
We need better social spaces which do not have the token cost of drinks to use.
But again, now I know it's talking about that kind of pub, what is the actual issue? Some sort of rate being added to something? What rate? Is this related to a rating system? Taxes? Is it affecting the consumer? The owner?
So confused.
It's been in the news quite a bit over the years since the pandemic.
Not every site has to provide an ELI5.
For a generic ".com" domain that isn't American, it's generally a good idea to yes, have a kind of minimal hint that tells you at least which country it's about, and at least a single link you can follow to get the broader context.
I'm following a link to it on HN. When I get there, I have zero context. Visitors to your site can come from anywhere, so it's generally considered a good idea to provide basic context.
Umm, I take it you didn't click the "About" link at the top right of the page. That gives you some of that context and names the countries involved in the first full sentence.
Alternatively clicking on the "Map" link should give a sizable proportion of people a big hint about which countries it involves. Three seconds of scrolling out on the map makes it obvious.
It's generally a good idea to make the subject of your site clear on the homepage, without requiring people to start clicking around to hunt for it.