The Ship Centurion is a quintessential pub on Whitstable high street serving up pints and chit-chat, with sport on the telly.

It does roast dinners on Sunday, hosts quiz nights and the occasional disco too.

Running up to Christmas, the bar is decorated with tinsel and baubles. In the spring and summer months, petunias cascade from hanging baskets at its front where, year-round, English and German flags fly.

But as relaxing and welcoming as the atmosphere of a local pub is, the job of managing one is as tough - especially with extra costs coming in next month as a result of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Budget.

Asked to sum up the profession in a few words, landlord Roland Birks’ says: “Long hours, hard work, and not as rewarding as it used to be.

“I’ll get in around 7.30. I start by cleaning the toilets and cleaning up around the bar and the tables. Then I do the beer order, sort out the cellar - I clean the lines once a week.

“I make sure the bank accounts are all right and pay the bills of that day, then I get the deliveries coming in and make orders for the next day.

“Then you open the doors and your day really starts - serving and talking to people till 11, 12 o'clock at night.”

Primarily a locals’ spot, Roland says The Ship Centurion is fortunate to have steady footfall throughout the day, with older residents coming in earlier on and a younger crowd in the evenings.

A family business three decades in the trade, its management has passed from one generation to the next.

But while during that period, the job of running the free house hasn’t changed much, changes in technology and society have generally left pubs with fewer customers and more bills to pay.

Back in the golden era - which Roland estimates was at least 20 years ago - people relied on pubs as places to spend time together, talk and do business deals.

“Nowadays people do that online,” he says.

“There's not much communication face-to-face anymore, and that's reducing people going out.”

What’s more, people who do come through the door expect to pay for their pint not with notes or coins but with the tap of a card - incurring costs to the business.

Roland says card transaction fees cost him up to £500 a month - a bill which never existed back when cash was king.

“There's not much communication face to face anymore, and that's hurting pub culture...”

Globalisation has also left its mark.

When Roland’s parents Armin and Janet Birks were at the Ship Centurion’s helm, the pub’s speciality German beers (hence those flags outside) were a unique selling point.

“Thirty-odd years ago when we started this pub, we had Bitburger on draft, a weissbier on draft, which is German-style stuff, and that helped us to stand out.

“You couldn’t really get those beers in England easily - nobody had even heard of them unless they'd been in the army.

“Things have changed - there’s more open trade and big international brewers now, so you can get Peroni, Corona, Bitburger anywhere.

“It makes it harder for places like us which are specialised - because it's not so special anymore.”

Since The Ship Centurion first opened, the average price of a pint of draught lager in the UK has risen substantially, but steadily from £1.57 in 1994 to £4.83 today, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Roland says this incremental increase is easy enough to pass on to the consumer. What’s increasingly hurting his bottom line is the soaring costs of everything else.

For every pint of beer sold, two-thirds of the revenue goes back to the brewery. Out of the remaining third, Roland is being squeezed tighter and tighter to pay ever-increasing bills.

“The cost of energy alone has tripled in the last 10-15 years.

“We’re now paying £1,300 per month for electricity - the Sky bill is £900.

“And you can’t just increase the cost of pints from say, £4.50 to £5.20. You wouldn’t have anybody in - they’ll just go to Wetherspoons over the road.”

The pub giant’s Whitstable branch - The Peter Cushing - is just a one-minute walk away from The Ship Centurion.

To compensate for the higher operating costs, Roland has repeatedly reduced his own profit.

“I'd rather take a smaller margin home but keep the business going for better days, if there are better days ahead.”

“We know our local old boys well - if they don't turn up, we make sure we contact them to make sure they're okay...”

Roland explained The Ship Centurion is more than just a business to him and, to locals, it’s more than just a place to drink - it’s a bastion of the community.

“We have an older generation of regulars in the daytime who don’t get out very often, whose family have maybe moved away so they’re on their own a lot of the time.

“Walking down to the pub is good exercise for them and even if they just come in for a coffee, it doesn’t matter. The point is that it’s good for them to interact with people.

“We know our local old boys well - if they don't turn up, we make sure we contact them, to make sure they're okay.

“When they come in we’re making sure they're safe, that they don't have too much to drink so they can get home, or even walk them home ourselves sometimes.”

Pubs sometimes have the reputation of being dangerous places, especially after dark.

But Roland says as one of the few places in Whitstable that stays open after 5pm, The Ship Centurion is a safe haven for people caught up in late-night trouble

He recalls one night, following a domestic disturbance, a local woman coming to the pub to get away from her partner.

“Customers themselves made sure her husband wasn't coming in and she found refuge here and we organised a friend to take care of her for the night.

“Whitstable is a safe town, but there’s always something going on and the pub's always open.”

Roland says a good part of why the pub has been so successful is down to his fantastic team.

But hikes in employer national insurance contributions (NICs) and the minimum wage will make paying staff more expensive when they take effect in April.

In the Autumn Budget, the Chancellor announced an increase in the rate of employer NICs from 13.8% to 15%.

The minimum wage will rise by 6.7% to £12.21 per hour for people aged 21 and over. Younger employees will see bigger percentage boosts to their pay packet.

The Centre for Policy Studies says this will contribute to 2025 being the most expensive year on record for employers of minimum-wage workers.

Roland fears these increases might just be the final hammer blow.

“We're very lucky. Like I said, we’re a local pub and we do get good footfall through the door, but it’s sort of a backwards trend. How long can we take it on the chin?

“I may have to reduce our open hours or reduce staffing, but running at a lower staff means I would have to do even more myself, which is possible, but then would the pub run as well?

“We’ll have to see. April, May, June - those three months are going to show how much the costs have gone up, where my margins sit and whether I can still survive and stay open.”