Sheffield Pubs forced to increase prices

The local public house is the latest industry to fall to the 'credit crunch'.

It is hitting almost every industry, company and person in the country and now the prices of pints in your local pubs are about to escalate.

Local licensees in Sheffield are set to 'up' their prices of a pint by up to 15p. It comes after the increase of people boycotting their local pubs in favour of being lured by cheap deals for alcohol in supermarkets, as well as a new government scheme to tackle alcohol consumption.

Added to this, the government health secretary Nicola Sturgeon, is planning to introduce a scheme where public houses and supermarkets must have a minimum price for selling beer, wine and spirits in return for holding a license for selling alcohol.

No figure has been set at the moment, but there are suggestions that it could be 40p per unit of alcohol, which would see a bottle of vodka containing 37.5% of alcohol costing £10.50 and a 13% bottle of wine, £3.90.

This will cause more upset to the alcohol selling trade, but the health secretary says that lowering the country's consumption of alcohol can only be a good thing;

"It is unacceptable that here and also in Scotland, you can exceed the weekly male guideline for alcohol for less than £3.50. These measures we are looking to take are mainly aimed at sales in supermarkets, but we're also looking to tackle the sales in public houses".

One public house which is being forced into a dramatic price increase is The Grindstone, situated in the heart of the Crookes area of Sheffield. Land lord John Bishop said;

"We have to try and lower our prices to get people in, whereas the government is forcing us to raise our prices. We have a business to run, if the licensee is losing money, we have to increase the prices".

Speaking about the economic crisis, Mr. Bishop also added;

"We've heard that gas and electricity prices are on the up which is going to affect us, maybe we have to look at lowering staff wages. Petrol is another issue, in terms of deliveries. It just can't go on".

In Sheffield, there are more pub closures than ever before. On a national level, 14 close per week according to official government figures.

This is due to lack of business as well as a collection of other elements impacting on the local pub crisis.

One being last summer's floods, which have seen the price of malt and hops – beer's essential ingredients – rocket this year, forcing up production costs.

The situation for local pubs looks pretty grim. Nigel Williams, landlord of The Ranmoor Inn and a member of the governing body of the Federation Of The Licensed Victuallers Association, thinks people need to remember what it is the local public house has to offer;

"I think we need to do more to get people excited about their local. People enjoy the atmosphere of a great pub and the sense of community. That's the key".

Jonathan Garnett, The Steel Bugle.