The landlady of a village pub is quitting the licensing business because of financial restraints and the decline in the number of customers.

Lynn Fisher is leaving for pastures new, just seven months after taking over the Five Bells in Hoo.

The grandmother in her late 50s, said: "I have had enough. There has to be more to life than struggling to pay the bills and having to work the seven days a week."

Ms Fisher is relocating to Devon on Monday, November 7 – the day the new tenant is moving in.

She added that the rise in the cost of living has kept the influx of young families moving into the rapidly expanding village, away.

She said: "They cannot afford it. It is dead during the week. They work during the week, come home have tea and go to bed."

While business picked up at weekends, with Sunday roasts proving popular, Mrs Fisher said she relied on a few regulars to keep afloat.

But after five years in the trade she fears the disappearance of the local pub is looming fast.

She added: "The customers we do have are getting old and when they are gone they will not be replaced by younger people at the rate we are going.

"The pub used to be the hub of the community, but now there is not that connection."

Ms Fisher used to run the Fitzwalter Arms, a 16th century boozer in Goodnestone a village outside Canterbury.

She started off in the pub trade five years ago in Devon where she is now setting up home.

She said: "I used to run a horse-riding stables and I shall be returning to do something like that."

News that the Five Bells will remain a public house is being welcomed by residents who feared its demise.

Ms Fisher added: "There were rumours that it would close. Whoever takes it over will have to spend a lot of money turning it around. Frankly, I do not care, I just want to get out."

The new owner, who is currently at a pub in the London area, will be opening Tuesday to Sunday.

Cllr Ron Sands, who represents the peninsula said: "I am pleased it is staying as a pub, even though I do not use them.

"We have lost a pub and a couple of social club, so keeping it as a pub is for the good of the whole community."

The Windmill on the Ratcliffe Highway closed in March 2020 due to the financial impact of lockdown.

Plans were drawn up by Rochester-based City Way Health Clinic to convert the 1960s building into an osteopath surgery with pilates studio.

A business centre on the first floor which would include five offices for "start-up and developing businesses" was also proposed.

The Bridge Tavern in Church Street closed in 2009. The Chequers, in the same road, remains open.