Business leaders across the capital have given a cautious welcome to an government review of pub opening hours – a move which could see local councils stripped of some of their licensing powers.
Open all hours: Croydon’s Boozepark is likely to welcome later opening hours during football’s 2026 World Cup
“Pubs and bars are the beating heart of our communities”, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said yesterday, as a four-week consultation was launched to consider the recommendations of the Licensing Task Force, which wants a streamlining of licensing for venues and the slashing alcohol duty.
Currently, local authorities grant licences with strict operating hours which venues must follow, in an effort to reduce the risk of antisocial behaviour blighting the lives of residents. It is these regulations which enforce the 11pm “last orders” rule in most pubs most of the time.
But those working in the hospitality sector fear that whatever regulatory change might come from the consultation, it will be too little and too late.
“It’s time the law caught up with the realities of running venues in 2025,” Rupert Power, who represents businesses in Soho, central London, said.
“Operating a hospitality business has become uniquely challenging in the years since the pandemic. Rising costs, complex regulations and outdated licensing laws have all created barriers that stifle creativity and growth. We need licensing to be cooperative and enabling, not punitive.”
The review as announced yesterday could also make it easier for venues in Croydon to serve food and drinks outside.
But many pub managers fear that such changes won’t be enough to redress their daily struggle with sky-high rents, staff shortages, as well as the government’s recent increase in employer National Insurance contributions and living wage.
According to the British Beer and Pub Association, an estimated 378 pubs will close this year, up from 350 last year. A possible 5,000 jobs will go as a consequence.
Fighting the dragon: even Wetherspoons, who run The George in Croydon town centre, doubt if the changes will do enough to boost business
Tim Martin, the founder of the Wetherspoons pub chain, responded to the plan by describing it as “moderate plus at best”.
Wetherspoons has in recent years closed two of its pubs in central and South Croydon, while it has been sitting on the Grape and Grain pub site on Anerley Hill for eight years, the dithering a consequence first of covid and more recently, the troubling business conditions.
Efforts to sell the Grape and Grain have so far failed, while The Milan Bar in the Grants building in the town centre and the Skylark, on South End, both remain empty and unsold.
“Pubs would probably prefer to have the choice as to their hours but due to economic pressures, often stemming from high taxes and costs, the pub industry as a whole has tended to reduce hours or close permanently in recent years,” said Martin.
Figures released earlier this year showed that the long-term decline in British pubs has continued, with closures coming at a rate of one a day in 2025.
Later opening hours could boost pub businesses in 2026, when the football World Cup is being staged in the United States, Canada and Mexico, with evening kick-off times taking matches deep into the night time, especially for matches played at Pacific coast venues.
But others working in the trade have expressed doubts whether later opening times would do much to help their business, as recent data suggests customers are eating, and drinking, earlier in the evening.
“We have a few sites that would welcome another hour of drinking but we’d still have to staff them and factor in other running costs,” an source told The Grauniad.
“If it is quicker and less costly to get temporary extensions for events like late kick-offs in a World Cup, or pavement licences, then that is helpful but won’t move the dial.”
Others have described the plans as “an open all hours free-for-all” that will lead to more drink-related aggression, greater violence against women and even more deaths from alcohol.
Local authorities and police and crime commissioners fear that extended late-night opening will lead to more noise, nuisance and antisocial behaviour blighting the lives of residents who live near licensed premises.
“These proposed reforms, developed without adequate input from policing, ambulance services, local licensing authorities, health experts or citizens, are a charter for chaos,” said Dr Richard Piper, the chief executive of the charity Alcohol Change UK.
“One of the biggest things that people across the country are desperate to see is safer streets with less antisocial behaviour. Yet these proposals – little more than an alcohol industry wish-list – would deliver the opposite.
“Allowing petrol stations, off-licences and corner shops to sell alcohol even later into the evening, or the early hours, will inevitably mean more victims of crime, including domestic violence, more antisocial behaviour and disturbance, more police time spent dealing with drink-fuelled incidents and both ambulance and A&E staff having to deal with even more people who have come to harm as a result of alcohol.”
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If this is a serious strategy to making London a more 24 hour city then they have to look at improving night time public transport too, you can’t just have one without the other. It also doesn’t need to be geared around alcohol, late night cafes and other entertainment would also be welcomed by many.
Not to be an apologist for this Government, but this feels like a case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Is doing something better than nothing?
“recent data suggests customers are eating, and drinking, earlier in the evening.”
… because current licensing rules prevent later drinking?
I would point out that the largest pub chain in the country (Wetherspoons) already opens until 12 midnight weekdays and 1.00am Friday and Saturday. Whist I have no objection to the proposed measures they are hardly a revolutionary move.