HAS anyone else noticed that the town’s nightlife seems to be near non-existent until after 10pm?

What happened to Friday afternoons when the likes of The George, The Globe, The Angel etc would be bustling with workers from the nearby industrial parks?

Come 7pm the pubs would be heaving and there would be a great atmosphere of everybody winding down from a hard week’s slog and enjoying a tasty beverage. Many pubs back then were Marstons pubs before the Greene King takeover.

Is it because places are open later to encourage late-night drinking that it is, in fact, killing the part of the evening when people should be out enjoying themselves and supporting their locals?

I propose in order to keep the pubs alive as they were 10 to 15 years ago, opening times should be brought back into the more traditional 11am to 11pm, with the odd late licence as it was in the grand days of The Town Mills being the afterpubs- shut place to go.

This may ruffle the feathers of the newly rebranded Propaganda with its 3am licence or the proposed 4am close for Flicks.

As an old pub dog who has worked in many of the town’s pubs it breaks my heart to see them empty and slowly dying a death. Let’s raise a glass to our boozers. Tetsuo!

Neil Murray Walled Meadow Andover