Landmark Coventry pub The Rocket closes

[dutchman]

Well-known Coventry pub The Rocket has closed its doors – as a report revealed three boozers a week are being shut in the region.



The Rocket pub in Warwick Road has been boarded up again – just ten months after reopening amid much fanfare for the 2010 World Cup.

Formerly a favourite haunt for football fans, it had been closed for about a year before that.

It comes as the British Beer and Pub Association revealed about 1,300 pubs closed across Britain last year, with the loss of 13,000 jobs.

Owners Enterprise Inns confirmed the tenant landlord at the prominent city boozer near the train station had left. The firm insisted it was looking for someone to come in and reopen the pub.

The Rocket sign at the front of the building was damaged by fire in January.

Vicky Averis, spokeswoman for Enterprise Inns, said: “It is a temporary closure and we are carrying out statutory repair works.

"We will be recruiting a new licensee to reopen the pub as soon as possible.”

The BBPA report showed the over-all rate of UK pub closures had fallen from 40-a-week last year to 25-a-week now.

Richard Matthews, the British Beer and Pub Association’s secretary for the Midlands, said the region had been hit “as bad as anywhere” in recent years.