The Importance of Public Houses and the Implications of their Closure in Village Communities

Abstract

The following paper is an undergraduate dissertation that investigates the implications of pub closures and the roles that public houses play in village communities. Initially existing literature surrounding public houses was reviewed in order to give a background to the study and to place the study within the context of current knowledge on the subject. The methods used in order to carry out the study’s aims were based on interviews with 40 residents from 2 villages containing pubs and 40 residents from 2 villages that had lost their pubs. The 4 sites were located in County Durham. The responses of the residents from the two categories of village were compared in order to assess how severely the presence of pubs affects village communities and combined with the opinions of residents regarding pub closures; a picture of how pub closure affects communities was constructed. The conclusions drawn from the paper indicated that the presence of pubs in village has a positive effect on the strength of village communities and that pub closures can have various negative implications for village communities.