IS HACKNEY London’s booziest borough? An analysis by two number-crunchers has found that the capital’s pubs are closing one by one, but only in Hackney are more opening than closing.

True, the percentage opening is a mere 3 per cent rise, to 160 in 2016, but next to the authority with the biggest percentage loss of pubs — Barking and Dagenham, 56 per cent — it sits well. In 2001 World City No 1 had 4,835 pubs and by 2016 that had fallen to 3,615 (see table).

The biggest absolute losses in public-house numbers were in Croydon, Tower Hamlets and Westminster 75 each. This last may seem odd, given the boozy rep. of MPs, but remember, parliamentarians can drink at bars within the building.

Growth in employment in pubs and bars has varied among boroughs, analysts Melisa Wickham and Nye Cominetti, found. In Hackney it grew by an average 6.9 per cent a year.

Let’s hope the next  pub to open in ’Appy ’Ackney is a revived Acorn, much missed by its specialist clientele.

* Source: a commissioned Greater London Authority analysis of Office of National Statistics and Inter-Departmental Business Register statistics. Loving Dalston is grateful also for the help of Camra for the table and much of the research.

David Altheer 020517

* Backstory: Property investor silent on Acorn plans; Precious but little-known pub; A soda kinda Hackney night out; Pint and a Dalston horseburger, please; Barkin’ ’ell or Shoreditch-on-Thames? 

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