A total of 9.5% of restaurants and 7.7% of pubs located in town centres have closed this year, according to a new report.
The Local Data Company (LDC) discovered that 4,143 restaurants, cafes and fast food outlets closed in the nine months to September, out of the 43, 327 sites it had surveyed.
It also revealed that 1,136 pubs had closed in the period, from the 14,670 it studied.
LDC said it had undertaken one of the most comprehensive studies of the retail sector in the UK and had surveyed 251, 462 firms, in 705 towns across the UK.
The survey also discovered that one in 10 retail shops went out of business in the nine months to September.
The research company said that multiple shop operators were being just as badly affected by the downturn as independent individual operators. It revealed that retailers with more than five shops suffered a failure rate of 9.9% - in comparison with a 10.1% failure rate for solo operators.
Nearly 12% of off-licences closed and just over 8% of leisure sector outlets closed, which was less than service based industries such as banks (9%) and the convenience sector (11.3%).
The British Property Federation is using the closure statistics to further its calls for an extension of empty property rate relief to help landlords.
Full business rates are applied to commercial property, including pubs and restaurants, left vacant for more than three months, which takes on extra significance with the rates revaluation due to come into effect from April 2010.
Liz Peace, chief executive of the British Property Federation, said: ““Business secretary Lord Mandelson said the government’s empty property tax was ‘good for business’ but if charging a hardship tax on firms’ vacancies is the government’s idea of helping business then I’d hate to see him helping an old lady across the road.”
