Right now, rural communities are fighting to hold on to vital local services – and they should not have to do it alone.
Pubs, as well as cafés, restaurants and other hospitality businesses, are facing existential threats. They are being forced to the brink by rising costs, business rates that don’t recognise their wider value, and a system that makes it harder every year for community-focused places to survive.
Rural businesses are not disappearing because they no longer matter to people, but because they are being pushed to the brink by factors outside their control.
If closures continue at the current rate, nearly half of the UK’s pubs and clubs could shut by 2030, according to a recent report by Capital on Tap.
Without action now, many more communities could lose their last remaining hub.
What would it mean if your community lost its local?
The place where you’ve made memories, formed friendships, met loved-ones and celebrated births, deaths and marriages.
The warm space where people come and feel a sense of belonging.
Two British pubs closed every day in the first quarter of 2026, according to industry figures. This is not a slow decline in the distance. It is a crisis unfolding right now, and it is accelerating.
That is why we must act together to protect the pubs, cafés and hospitality businesses that hold rural communities together.
Help Plunkett to keep the last light on
If these iconic businesses are to be saved, community ownership is the answer.
Plunkett’s Save Rural Hospitality campaign, Keep the Last Light On, will help meet two urgent needs:
- To help communities that are fighting to save their pub, before it is lost forever.
- To support existing community-owned pubs that are being worn down by costs and a system that doesn’t recognise their social value.
We are aiming to raise £35,000 so we can keep standing alongside rural communities that are working tirelessly to save the places that matter most.
Every donation will go towards helping us to support 14 pubs and other hospitality businesses at risk of permanent closure.
Our call to policymakers
Community businesses are designed and governed to provide warm and welcoming community spaces and focus on financial sustainability ahead of making profit. We believe business rates relief should be as generous as possible for organisations with community-focused governance structures, due to the unique social benefit they provide alongside their services.
The stability of long-term, appropriate rates relief would be transformative for rural communities without hurting public finances.
Stand with us
Every time a pub closes, we all feel it in some way. Something bigger is lost: connection, confidence, identity. This is not just about saving buildings. It is about refusing to accept the steady erosion of rural life.
By supporting Plunkett to Save Rural Hospitality to Keep the Last Light On, you are standing with communities who are saying: this matters, and we will not let the lights go out quietly.
By gifting the cost of a pint, your donation will help us to offer:
- bespoke support to help with business planning, income generation and community engagement
- visits from specialist advisers to assess help improve premises and critique business plans
- access to expertise from our business experts.
Give the cost of a pint. Help keep the last light on.
Inn This Together
At the end of 2025, Plunkett UK convened an in-person roundtable discussion in Oxfordshire comprising 20 experts and key representatives from the hospitality sector (photo above), with 15 more attending an online session.
These included representatives from the event sponsor, Diageo, plus
- River Cottage
- Stroud Brewery
- Hatch Mansfield
- McFarlane Telfer
- Sidney Phillips
- The Sky Wave Distilling Company
- The Portman Group
- Thomas Franks Ltd
- The Wine Conversation Podcast
- Fusion Labs.
Attendees also included MPs, DEFRA, community businesses, funders and suppliers.
The aim of the meetings, and the core functions for the continued Save Rural Hospitality campaign are to create a taskforce to:
- Secure funding for Plunkett’s core community business advisory service
- Provide bespoke expertise and advice tailored to the needs of sector
- Develop bespoke supplier offers for Plunkett’s community-owned hospitality members
- Increase profile and advocacy of the community-owned hospitality sector
The taskforce will look at the wide-ranging issues affecting hospitality businesses and sought solutions. Topics included operational matters, policy, information and data, membership, social impact, funding, marketing and training – and the variety of delegates ensured perspectives were provided from within and beyond the community ownership sector.
“If we work together, we can ensure that not only do our venues survive, but that they thrive, become more inclusive, more diversified, more connected to their communities and more sustainable for the long term.”
Elisabeth Rochford, Diageo
Diageo is a global leader in beverage alcohol with an outstanding collection of brands across spirits and beer categories, sold in nearly 180 countries around the world.
What else is happening?
Anthropy 2026: Plunkett lead a session at Anthropy's Natonal Gathering for leaders and leading organisations across all sectors in March 2026, entitled, 'Are we calling last orders on rural youth? Building opportunities through community-owned hospitality'.
A panel of young people shared how community-owned hospitality transformed their lives, as well as their rural communities. There was debate about what more we can do to protect and strengthen the community-owned hospitality sector?
Click here to read more on our LinkedIn post
New Recommended Membership Suppliers are being added to Plunkett’s offer and improved rates for members are being negotiated – news on this to be released shortly.
Get in touch
We are now creating a Hospitality Taskforce – a group of people and businesses who will be helping to drive forward change for community-owned hospitality sector and committed to funding, member support and advocacy.
If you would like to be part of the Taskforce, email Hannah via the button below.
