Where Community Grows

In 2025, British pubs permanently closed at a rate of roughly one per day, with 366 venues shutting their doors across England and Wales. In the first quarter of 2026, 161 venues shut their doors across England, Scotland, and Wales, wiping out around 2,400 jobs.

Research by Loughborough University in partnership with the Campaign to End Loneliness has shown that pubs provide varied social benefits to customers by actively encouraging meaningful social interactions. Pubs are at the forefront of tackling social isolation and loneliness, contributing to the sustainability of local communities.

A joint University of Oxford/CAMRA study found that people who have a ‘local’ that they visit regularly tend to feel more socially engaged and contented, and are more likely to trust other members of their community. Those without a local pub had significantly smaller social networks and felt less engaged with, and trusting of, their local communities.

I developed the partnership with Plunkett UK, ran the tender process to commission a production partner, and exec-produced the series — shaping an editorial approach that replaced dry legislative process with first-person testimony from the volunteers and activists who lived it. The result: a campaigning tool designed to turn viewers facing the same threat into people who take action to save their own local.