Punch Pub Company has welcomed government plans, announced in the Queen’s Speech today, to relax pub opening hours. 

The company, which owns more than 4,300 pubs throughout the UK, said the changes would give licensees more flexibility. 

Commercial director Francis Patton said the move to a more relaxed, European style bar culture could only be of benefit to both pubs and their customers. 

“By moving away from fixed closing times, we will avoid the scenes of drunkeness which can be seen on many high streets at 11pm,” he said. 

“I believe we will also see pubs making an informed choice about when they want to open. Seventy five per cent of our pubs are community locals and licensees running this type of pub will choose their opening hours to suit the community. 

 “Not all pubs will choose to open longer - in a survey of our licensees fifty seven per cent wanted to open longer hours – but less than one per cent would choose to open 24 hours a day.” 

However, the company and its licensees have expressed concern over plans to change the existing system of local magistrates granting licenses. 

The government has indicated that licensing would be transferred to a single system, managed by local authorities.

“We are concerned about plans to move licensing from local magistrates – more than seventy per cent of our licensees wanted it to stay with them,” said Francis. 

“Their major concerns were additional costs and delays if it were handed over to local authorities. However, we are encouraged at the way the government has indicated it wishes to resolve these concerns. Obviously the devil is in the detail but we look forward to continuing the positive dialogue with the government and, in particular, the minister in charge, Dr Kim Howells, to finalise the new legislation.”

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