Quarter of pubs to stay shut on 'Super Saturday' over fears of rowdiness and overcrowding

More than a quarter of England’s pubs will keep their doors firmly shut despite the easing of lockdown restrictions, following concerns over potential disorder on ‘Super Saturday’.

Thousands of pubs will not open until later this month or even August, with many fearing they are not in a position to cope with the anticipated rush of customers this weekend.

Under new Government guidelines customers will have to follow strict rules on how they behave, with no dancing or singing, no drinking at the bar and abiding by a "one-in-one-out" rule in toilets.

Patrons will have to be two metres away from each other where possible or one metre with extra precautions in place such as having tables back to back and not side by side.

But many landlords fear there will be rowdy scenes as thousands of drinkers descend on pubs following the lockdown, with police chiefs having already warned re-opening in a weekend after months of closure will have the impact of several New Year's Eves in one night.

The British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) and the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) have now taken the unusual step of issuing a joint statement calling on customers to behave responsible on Saturday.

David Wilson, Public Affairs Director of the BBPA, told The Telegraph: “There’s concern about opening on a Saturday in summer, towards the end of the football season. We need to manage the situation carefully to make sure there isn't rowdy behaviour. Some operators have chosen not to re-open at the weekend and to stagger it instead.

“It’s unpredictable and the police have their concerns which they’ve shared with us. We need to properly manage this because we don’t want to lose the opportunity to trade for the rest of the summer, having lost so many opening hours already.”

Industry bodies estimate that of England’s 37,500 pubs as many as 25 per cent will be unable to comply with the required social distancing and hygiene measures by Saturday, have had difficulty guaranteeing suppliers after months of lockdown, or are simply reluctant to begin serving on a potentially crowded day.

That means more than 9,300 pubs will not be ready to open to customers despite the much heralded push for the country to start coming out of what Prime Minister Boris Johnson described as its “long national hibernation”.

Even many of those that are ready will delay re-opening.

Some, like the Greene King group, will wait until Monday to re-open its directly managed pubs, preferring to wait until a weekday when the anticipated rush has subsided.

Others, such as the Young’s chain of pubs, are waiting until July 20, with sources saying they are “just not ready” to open safely before then.

The White Brasserie group of gastropubs, run by the renowned chef Raymond Blanc, is waiting until August 3 to re-open its outlets across the country.

Its managing director, Richard Ferrier, said: “The decision by Government to open on a Saturday is not great, Saturday is the worst day to open up after such a long closure.

“Ordinarily traders look to open on a Monday, when trade is lowest, so they can bed in new procedures and practices.”

He added: “If we’d decided to open on Saturday we would have been very busy and our employees are naturally quite nervous about coming back to work. They are on the front line and we wanted to give them confidence by opening in a measured way. We don’t want to see a situation where there’s a rise in infections and a backlash against pubs and restaurants.”

The Wetherspoons chain will open all its pubs on Saturday, but will not show football or big sporting events as usual, in order to avoid crowds congregating around screens.

In the joint statement the BBPA and NPCC, along with UK Hospitality and the London Night Czar, said:  “We are looking forward to welcoming people back into pubs in villages, towns and cities across the country this weekend, but we also want to impress upon people the importance of behaving responsibly. We ask pub goers to be supportive of landlords and pub staff, helping them to reopen in the best way possible. It's important everyone respects the new measures in place to ensure everyone can enjoy the return of our pubs safely.”

Patrick Dardis, CEO of Young’s pubs, said the Government’s decision to allow pubs to operate 1 metre social distancing rule had given it leeway to open earlier than planned, but that it was still too early to do so this weekend.

He said: “We initially intended to reopen our pubs on 3 August. With the welcome clarity from the government that we can reopen under 1m social distancing from 4 July, we have brought our reopening date forwards to 20 July to give us time to ensure we are fully prepared and have all the relevant measures in place to welcome back our customers and teams safely.”