SUPERMARKETS selling cheap alcohol - and "irresponsible" pub operators who run cut-price drink promotions - have been blamed for binge drinking.

Tony Brookes, Emley-born owner of real ale pub The Head of Steam in Huddersfield's St George's Square, said binge drinking had nothing to do with the new Licensing Act, which allows pubs to open longer.

He said so-called 24-hour drinking hardly existed in the pub trade.

"Virtually all 24-hour licences are for supermarkets and off-licences," he said.

"What pub owner is going to be stupid enough to be open right through the night? Hardly anyone, I reckon.

"The trade has almost universally gone for one to three hours extra time."

Mr Brookes agreed that some pub groups had fuelled binge drinking by running cheap drinks promotions.

But he added: "The new Act is not the cause of binge drinking and will not lead to any more binge drinking than there is now.

"Speak to any taxi driver bringing people into towns and cities on an evening to go drinking and they will tell you that many of the customers are already drunk.

"They are buying ultra-cheap drink at supermarkets and off-licences and getting drunk, then going into town to `finish off'.

"It is then they cause trouble.

"Pubs don't get their trade, but they do get the trouble and the reputation."

Mr Brookes said supermarkets were selling cases of beer for about half the price drinkers would pay in a pub.

And he said pub operators should take big brewers to task for allowing supermarkets to undercut them.