Pub closures have soared in the first quarter of this year, and the trade’s industry body says energy costs are to blame.

British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) warned the average energy bill for a pub would rise by £18,400 a year from this month with the Energy Bill Relief Scheme ending.

BBPA chief executive Emma McClarkin (pictured) said: “Energy bills are decimating our sector with extortionate costs wiping out profits and closing pubs at a faster rate than the pandemic.

“Pubs that were profitable and thriving before the energy crisis are being left with no option but to shut up shop. We have been raising the alarm for months that energy costs are posing an existential threat to pubs across the country and these figures are evidence of that. 

“It is essential that the government intervenes to ensure energy suppliers are offering the option of renegotiation to pubs locked into unmanageably high energy contracts.

“Make no mistake, the longer this goes on the more pubs will be lost forever in communities across the country, something must be done immediately to save them.”

Analysis of official government data by the commercial real estate intelligence firm Altus Group shows the overall number of pubs in England and Wales, including those vacant and being offered to let, dropped to 39,634 at the end of the first quarter to 31 March.

More than 150 pubs have disappeared for good from English and Welsh communities over the first three months of 2023, according to new figures.

The rate of pubs being demolished or redeveloped for other purposes has increased by almost 60 per cent at the start of the year as bumper energy bills have hammered the sector.

It showed 153 pubs vanished for good compared to the 39,787 pubs recorded in England and Wales at the end of 2022. The 51 pubs a month reduction was up from a drop of 32 during the whole of 2022.