“Small pubs will close, it is as simple as that. If it keeps going on like this I doubt I will be in business in a few years’ time.”

That’s the verdict of Gillingham pub manager David Gould following the Budget.

Chancellor Alistair Darling’s announcements mean alcohol taxes have risen by two per cent – putting the price of the average pint up 1p but, according to landlords, some pints may rise by as much as 10p.

That could mean smaller pubs closing as they struggle to keep customers.

Mr Gould, manager of the Frog and Toad, Gillingham, said customers would go to chain pubs such as Wetherspoons.

He said: “If we put 5p on a pint we will lose customers. They will go somewhere else.

“The Government will keep upping it. They are killing off pubs.

“Prices are at such a level now that my customers are already moaning about it. We keep having to think of ways to get people in. You don’t need reasons for them to leave.”

Mr Gould, whose pub has won a number of CAMRA awards over the past few years, said landlords would have to decide whether to lower quality at the expense of prices and said pubs were “a dying trade”.

He added: “I went to see a friend recently who works at a garage and I told him I hadn’t seen him in a long time and he said he was buying beer from a supermarket and drinking at home.

“That is what we have to deal with.”

Pauline Marriott, who has been a publican for 28 years, is landlady at the Cannon in Garden Street, Brompton.

She said: “I don’t think it has done us any favours. Listening to my customers they feel the same.

Rob Jaeger, landlord at the Man of Kent, in John Street, Rochester, said: “It probably translates to 10p a pint. People forget that it is only a 1p rise at the source. We have to pay for everything else – the petrol for delivery for example.”

Our Love Your Local campaign is encouraging people to back their local pubs and help them survive and thrive. Latest news on the campaign in Friday’s Medway Messenger.