Backing hospitality in Wales

Carolyn Brownell – Executive Director, FOR Cardiff

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Food and drink businesses are not peripheral to the economy. They are central to how communities function, how people connect, and how places come alive.

From city centres to market towns and rural villages, they underpin local economies, support employment at scale, and provide the shared spaces that give places their character.

They are also one of the most important gateways into work. Food and drink businesses offer accessible, flexible employment and rapid skills development, particularly for younger people and those entering the workforce for the first time.

That matters acutely in cities like Cardiff. According to the 2021 Census, more than a quarter of the city’s residents aged five and over are schoolchildren or students in full time education, the highest proportion of any local authority in Wales.

The 20 to 24 age group is now the largest five year age bracket in the city. Hospitality businesses are not just places students enjoy, they are where many earn, gain experience and begin their working lives.

That is why decisions affecting the sector deserve careful and joined up consideration.

The recent decision to introduce additional business rates relief for hospitality and live music venues in Wales was welcomed by many operators after sustained pressure from across the sector.

It demonstrated that engagement and evidence can influence policy. Listening matters. But so does understanding how decisions land in practice.

For many businesses, what is described as relief still results in higher costs than before. Revaluation, rising wage costs, supply chain inflation, energy pressures and compliance requirements are all hitting at once.

Hospitality operates on long horizons. Kitchens, venues and teams are built over years, not months. Short term support does not provide the certainty needed to invest in people, premises or innovation.

Instead, businesses retreat into survival mode. Training budgets shrink. Refurbishments are paused. New ideas are put on hold.

This matters not just for individual operators, but for communities. Across the UK, pubs continue to close at an alarming rate, with around one closing every day over the past year. Since 2020, more than 2,000 pubs have disappeared altogether.

In many rural areas, the local pub is one of the last remaining shared spaces. Its loss is not simply commercial.

It removes a meeting place, a support network and a sense of belonging. Research consistently shows that pubs and similar venues play a vital role in tackling loneliness and social isolation. When they disappear, communities feel the impact.

Against that backdrop, there has been recent commentary from the First Minister about encouraging people to spend less time at home and more time in shared social spaces.

That aspiration only works if those spaces are viable and sustainable. Encouraging social behaviour without supporting the places that enable it is a contradiction.

There is also a growing competitiveness issue between Wales and England. In England, hospitality businesses benefit from greater clarity and longer-term certainty around support.

In Wales, relief remains more limited and short term. That difference feeds directly into investment decisions.

When operators begin to question whether opening or expanding a venue would be cheaper just across the border, that should concern anyone focused on economic growth and place making.

Food and drink businesses employ people at scale, particularly younger workers and those seeking flexible entry points into employment.

They absorb risk when the wider economy tightens. Undermining their stability risks fewer jobs, reduced opportunity and weaker town and city centres.

None of this is about dismissing progress where it has been made. It is about recognising that the underlying challenge has not been resolved.

If Wales wants a thriving food and drink sector, policy must reflect how these businesses operate in reality and how investment decisions are made.

Business rates are part of that conversation, but so is how we value the sector itself. These businesses are not simply occupiers of property.

They are employers, trainers, community anchors and drivers of footfall. Treating them as civic infrastructure rather than a discretionary sector would be a meaningful step forward.

The recent decision shows that listening is possible. The task now is to build on that and ensure Wales remains a place where food and drink businesses can thrive, bringing people together, creating jobs and strengthening communities across the country.