Closing time for London pubs but Hackney drinks on to keep the ale flowing, the crisps crunching

Loving Dalston BUSINESS & DEVELOPMENT, CULTURE, Hackney, HACKNEY SECRETS, NATURE & CONSERVATION, NEWS, Shoreditch
Pubpark(m): Pub on the Park London Fields 251213 © david.altheer@gmail.com
Popular: the Pub on the Park in London Fields is well-placed for the hipster trade
pub12: Proposed Farr’s School of Dancing pub-restaurant Dalston Lane Lon at E8 3DF May 2012 © david.altheerATgmail.com
This empty premises became Dalston bar Farr’s School of Dancing, below right

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.Farr's School of Dancing bar 140113 © david.altheer@gmail.com

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? 

* All pictures on this page © David.Altheer [at] gmail.com,  for sale for reproduction (see last paragraph of Contact)

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