PUB landlords are fighting to make a profit as new figures show UK pubs are now closing at the rate of four a day.

As the smoking ban and cheap supermarket lager hit pub trade nationwide, many Kent pubs are also suffering. Closure or diversification are often the only routes for pubs often centuries old.

The latest to end trading as a traditional pub is the Blue Boys, a large pub on the A21 near Matfield, now sporting a banner announcing it is to re-open as an Indian Restaurant.

Latest figures from the British Beer and Pub Association show that UK pubs have been closing at the rate of 27 a week, or nearly four a day, over the past year.

The closure rate is now higher than ever; seven times faster than in 2006 and 14 times faster than in 2005.

David Ross, southern regional secretary for the association, believes pubs without an established food trade are closing at the fastest rate, partly due to the ban on smoking in pubs.

He said: "The full impact of the smoking ban is not yet clear. The ban has certainly put a lot of people who were relying on the drink sales in a very vulnerable position. I suspect it is these pubs that are now feeling the pinch.

"What we have found is that those pubs who serve good food and have built up a good client base are undoubtedly doing much better."

"For those who relied on drink sales, their profits will have been reduced since the smoking ban."

He said the challenges for running a successful pub were greater than ever before.

The association’s chief executive Rob Hayward, said: "Pub closures at this rate are threatening an important hub of our social fabric and community history. At this rate of closure, many villages across Britain face a pub-less future in the next few years."

Jonathan Neame, chief executive of brewer Shepherd Neame, which owns 275 pubs in Kent, said: "In a sense it is fair to say that pubs have been closing for a period of time, over the last ten or 15 years. But in the last year or so that rate of closure has rapidly accelerated.

"Nationally four pubs a day are closing, and most people in the industry think that figure will continue to rapidly accelerate.

"The reasons are many and complex. For a start a pub is a small business and they are experiencing increases in costs, rates, energy, employment. Any small business is experiencing the same thing.

"Secondly you have the problems of the rapid shift of alcohol consumption away from the pub into the home, with cheap supermarket prices and the problems that causes. And now, too, the ban on smoking in pubs, too is changing patterns and behaviour for people."

Duty on alcohol was the third factor, he said that made running a pub such an expensive business.

Shepherd Neame has a total of 380 pubs in the UK. It buys and sells between six and ten pubs each year.

Mr Neame added: "But it is not all doom and gloom. For every pub that closes another pub up the road may do much better."