Action needed to save our pubs - Hughes

2.00.00pm GMT Wed 4th Mar 2009

Simon Hughes, MP for North Southwark and Bermondsey, today joined the growing call across the country for government and local action to save the pubs in south London and the rest of the country from becoming an extinct species.

Mr Hughes made this call as figures released today show that in the last four years 11 pubs have closed in his North Southwark and Bermondsey constituency and that 33 pubs have closed across the Borough of Southwark.

Simon Hughes has become one of the founder members of the All Party Group to Save the Pub and will be attending the UK Pubs Crisis Summit meeting with ministers in Westminster this afternoon. Mr Hughes takes a particular interest in brewing and the licensed trade because his father was a brewer in London with Whitbread's and his grandfather was a brewer in London Young's,

"Good local pubs are very important in inner cities as well as the rest of the country. A good local pub, serving good quality beer, particularly real ale, and other alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks as well as coffees, snacks and food makes a fantastic contribution to the social life of our community. Pubs are often the best place for people to meet on equal terms, to relax or to do business, to catch up on the news or on the gossip, for political debate or for preventing loneliness and isolation.

Of course some pubs may not deserve to continue to thrive. But unless there is a local and national campaign to make sure good pubs survive and prosper there is a danger that the British pub will go from an endangered species to an extinct species - and we'll all be the worse for it."