by | Thursday, 13 November, 2025 | Business News, Pubs and Bars News
That’s the views of experts at Colliers, who set out a road map to returning uniform business rates to 35p in the pound.
“If the chancellor does not take action to reduce this rates burden, we will see more businesses going into administration, across the board, particularly as the current £1.7 billion retail, leisure, and hospitality relief is removed by April 2026,” said John Webber, head of business rates at Colliers.
He urges the chancellor to:
“Labour won the general election in 2024 promising ‘to abolish the [business rates] tax’ and thereby ‘save the high street’,” said Webber. “Yet according to the Office of Budget Responsibility figures last year, it is actually planning to raise almost £40bn annually from the tax by 2029/30.
“Far from reducing this burdensome tax, this government is therefore expanding it, into a more complex, more expensive, and more bureaucratic system, and with ‘reforms’ that only tinker around the edges. These do little to support growth or revitalise the high street or the UK economy.
“The government needs to start listening to businesses, to undertake proper feasibility studies before it introduces half-baked policies. and to bring in proper reform. Let’s get the [multiplier] road to 35 started!”
• The tax burden on community pubs has reached its limit, particularly for landlords running smaller tenanted community pubs.
That’s the view of Thwaites chairman Richard Bailey, writing as the company presented its results for the last six months. Pre-tax profit was up to £8.3m from £7.6m during the same period in 2024.
“Our trading performance is holding up, although it is patchy and unpredictable across the different parts of the business,” said Bailey.
“We are benefiting from the diversification of the business as well as the strategy pursued in recent years to position ourselves into more premium, experiential, and health orientated markets.
“We have a well invested, well positioned business, with opportunities to invest, grow and create new employment. However, we can only have confidence to do this if we have a stable and trustworthy fiscal and political framework to work with.”
• Like-for-like sales at Fuller’s managed pubs and hotels in the first half of its financial year rose by 4.6%. Adjusted profit before tax increased by 28% to £22.5 million (H1 2025: £17.6m). Like-for-like drink sales increased by 6.5%.
“In my first report as executive chairman, I am delighted to be delivering such a great set of results,” said Simon Emeny.
He added: “On 26th November, the government will announce its Budget for the coming year. I hope the chancellor has heeded the arguments and proposals articulated by the hospitality sector to avoid further punitive financial measures but, more so, I am frustrated by the lack of a clear plan to deliver the growth the chancellor claims to be seeking.
“The country needs ambitious and innovative ways to drive sustainable economic success. It needs new ideas, new thinking, and I genuinely hope the government succeeds in that and succeeds quickly.”
• McMullen’s has been given to convert a former newspaper office in Guildford into a pub and Restaurant. Stoke Mill, in Woking Road, has been acquired from Reach, which operates a huge number of national and local papers.
• Birdhouse Brewery beers, made in Herne Hill, London, will be poured when Bird House London opens The Bush Tavern, in Shepherd’s Bush, next Thursday (20th November). The premises was formerly occupied by BrewDog.
• Buccaneer Holdings, which operates nine managed pubs in the South West of England, saw turnover grow to £10,887,661 in the year to 31st October. Pre-tax profit was up from £262,091 in 2023 to £263,830.
• Small London pub company Aldrich Inns has re-opened the former Simmons Bar, in Bloomsbury, as the Jeremy Bentham. It has also re-opened the Lock and Lantern, in Notting Hill.
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