London pubs

In the survey, I was initially referring to country pubs. These are a great asset to this country and in many places serve good food that is cooked inidividually by a chef, as well as having  alot of character and rich history. In London, there are a few good pubs here and there with similar characterisitics and a comnunity feel, but the vast majority have no character any more and are part of boring chains. Some do, however, serve good beer and that is worth going there for from time to time.

As a Northerner in London - London pubs are too expensive, too noisy and too often claimed by the masses of city boys after work!

Up north if you want to be cramped in standing, unable to hear one another and drinking for the sake of forgetting your bad working day - you go clubbing!

If you want to actually sit and chat to people, maybe eat while you’re there, and enjoy a drink and a catch up with friends - you go to the pub.

London doesn’t seem to grasp that - it’s full of fancy overpriced bars that sell terrible watery beer and play loud popular music and are like clubs for people who don’t look young enough to be asked for ID anymore (I’m verging on 30 and these bars make me feel like I’m trying to hang on to my student days with the population of Tinder)

There are some lovely pubs further out - where you can enjoy a pint, food, catching up with mates but Central London is hopeless. 

There seems to be a move from community to commercial in a lot of businesses.  Trends dictating the offering rather than a broad based local space

In my early 20s, I used to go to fancy bars with dim lighting and expensive cocktails with music. In my late 20s, I started to meet friends at pubs because I was more interested in having a quiet calm place to catch up over a drink and some nibbles. But I came to notice that the music was always soo loud in pubs and if it was a busy pub you couldn't even hear each other talk. So now I just go to restaurants.

Being stood awkwardly with friends or work colleagues in a packed pub which is soo loud because everyone is trying to talking over each other and the loud music is not my idea of fun. Those momemnts where you can't hear each other so you just nod and smile a lot. Or having to squeeze past groups of people with drinks in their hands to get to the bar and then wait ages to be served.

All I want from a pub is a nice clean place, somewhere to sit, ability to walk around without asking someone at every step if you could squeeze through, better queuing system to be served(!), low noise levels and a good selection of nibbles (for those that don't want a proper meal) all at decent prices. Clean toilets would be nice too!

Tend to agree with most of these comments, none of which the survery questions really pick up on.  The bottom line all over London is that rents are prohibitive and this drives the heart out of the communities, as the large landlords and politicians in planning mostly have no sense of community or heritiage and so all kinds of useless businesses come in and go bust, which serves no one except landlords.  Marylebone where i live has only a couple of really good and tasty restaurants now, where the chefs can really cook and love cooking - the rest, including pubs, are just food of sorts cooked by average cooks with a lot of hype, noise and poor service and very inflated and self-entitled 'wannabe' customers who come into the area to be seen.  There is too much drinking in desperation to boost fragile egos in our cut-throat greedy office culture and so pubs are noisy and useless for a quiet meal.  

On the other hand, pubs - especailly old-fashioned, quiet and good pubs with home cooking - are part of our great UK Heritage and i wish there were more of them around.  This - and most else wrong with London - really is about 'wannabe' too-wealthy-for-the-common-good' 'desperate to boost my ego and feel good about myself by drinking and being loud' culture from customers and businesses alike, and  greedy already billionaires landlords.

I believe they are important not just for London but for the UK in general. They are part of the history and heritage of this Country, and we are losing the history to the "new ways"

Too many pubs have become boring second rate restaurants

I use pubs for regular meetings of the Royal Photographic Society - an educational Charity. They provide hospitality and usually private spaces in which to discuss our work and meet like-minded people.   It is not necessary to drink alcohol - as they all provide soft drinks and usually teas and coffees too...

They are important drop in spaces for Londoners, both for meetings, for catching up with friends and for socialising.  Without them life would lose some of its richness. 

Pubs give me the oppurtunity to meet with friends, family and afford me the chnace to make new friends. I would sugggest that taxes cause the prices to be too high and thus many people cannot afford a nice, simple drink and chat with locals and others. Prices need to come down so those of us who are no so well off can still enjoy these (once) affordable pleasures.

I was amazed that there was no mention of the noise, anti social behaviour and mess (urinating in doorways and alleyways) that comes with pubs in centre of London  particluarly in early hours and even in the morning with the deliveries and the staff clearing into outside bins hundreds of bottles. Almost 24 hour drinking 7 days a week  for most pubs should not be allowed.

Pubs have moved away from the conventional "pub" and we now have "bars" and theme pubs aimed that the younger generations not tradional pubs

They are the only places you can go to solely drink  with friends, some offer bar food, and dining dependent on locality. You cannot get that choice anywhere else.

I think London has a fairly healthy pub scene - there's a huge variety and it's impossible to generalise.

Pubs open & close all the time. It can be sad when a well-loved pub gets closed by some greedy PubCo or property speculator, against the wishes of its clientele - but on the other hand, if a place isn't popular or able to turn a profit for its owner/landlord, then it absolutely should close.

Communities can and should use the Assets of Community Value process to prevent the worst developer abuses.

I am just back from Seville in Spain where the drinking culture is very different. Bodegas are the nearest thing to pubs, but cafes and bars proliferate and offer bottled beer and small or large beers, plus snacks and meals and good coffee Continental style so no buckets of milky froth. The biggest differences are people live in the City so families are out using these facilities , price , two small beers €2-3

Here we have seen a move to warehouse pubs with stand at tables or high stools , happy hours , sports tv all attracting after work crowds but not elder friendly or family friendly. The work day is also different with schools out at 2pm or 3pm , siesta then out until late. Coming back I am struck by how shut in we are and how we have isolated ourselves into work mode, etc. I don’t know if we can rescue ourselves to a more humane way of living. Pubs could be part of that but there are much bigger issues at play.