By Brad Young, Money reporter
Mourning his mother’s death and celebrating her life at the Old Neighbourhood Inn was the obvious choice for Martin Leach, 72, from Chalford Hill, near Stroud.
The wood-beamed pub opposite his home had been woven into the fabric of the village for 150 years, so it made sense for 90 friends and family members to gather there in 2015 to say their final goodbyes to Nellie “Lilian” Leach.
But seven years later, the village would say goodbye to the Old Neighbourhood too; its only pub shuttering its doors in a scene playing out hundreds of times over across the UK – and at an accelerating pace.
“Entirely pissed off,” said Mr Leach, when asked how he felt about the closure of the pub, which had once played host to local bands, mobile bakeries, artisan vendors and an affectionate black Labrador.
“The pub was all that was left to represent that [village] community, and that’s gone. And I think it’s important to have that sense of community otherwise we just turn into a bunch of hamsters in cages.”
Some 239 pubs closed in England and Wales during the first three months of the year, according to government figures – 56% more than in the same period in 2023.
“There’s a sense of death by a thousand cuts or ‘what fresh hell is this?'” said Dr Thomas Thurnell-Read, a sociology expert at Loughborough University who has extensively researched pub closures.
“Everything cumulatively is building up and that’s why,…
