For those who love pubs, it has
been described as a ‘last call to arms’.
For pubcos – combined with a
series of poor short-sighted measures introduced by a series of governments, the
smoking ban and the bargain-basement prices supermarkets charge for cheap, nasty
lager – threaten to make the sight of your familiar, welcoming local a thing of
the past.
The all-too-frequently exploitative relationship
between large pub companies – organisations like Enterprise Inns, Punch Taverns
and Green King – and their tenants is something which has been allowed to
fester for far too long.
About 20,000 pub tenants across
the country have to purchase their beers, wines and spirits exclusively from
their pubcos, and in exchange, they are supposed to benefit from lower rents.
Instead, far too frequently
tenants are hit with above market-level rents, making their costs crippling
forcing them out of business. A good recent example is the Chequers Inn in
Whitney, the Prime Minister’s constituency. After twelve years landlord Simon
Moore called it a day in May. While his annual turnover averaged around
£230,000 a year, his rent to Enterprise Inns amounted to almost 40 per cent of
this.
The reasons for these sky-high
rents are various but a key factor is pubcos realised the inherent value of
their property stock during the boom years and leveraged absurdly to expand
their portfolios. When the credit crunch hit they were left with huge debts to
manage.
But it is not just high rents
which has heaped pressure on pubs. Selling pubs is frequently seen as a way out
by pubcos. Tales of pubs being allowed to decay, driving away punters, until
they are no longer financially viable, are legion. And the sector keenest to
take advantage of this fire sale have been supermarkets.
It is not the fault of the likes of Sainsbury’s
or Tesco’s. Why wouldn’t they be keen to get hold of prominent landmark buildings,
well known locally and crowbar in a convenience store?
An edition of the London Drinker
last year, the CAMRA magazine which can be found in many of the capital’s good
pubs, highlighted this problem. The piece, by Roger Warhurst, began by saying: ‘Fifty London pubs have been converted or redeveloped for supermarket
convenience stores since 2010, generally without the need for owners to seek
planning permission for change of use.’
A pub’s licences are the real
beauty for supermarkets. Large pubs frequently have all that is required – especially
alcohol licences.
A recent victim of this loophole
is the beautiful George IV pub in Brixton which Lambeth Council’s planning
committee narrowly voted in favour of allowing to be turned into a Tesco Metro
in May.
The only aspect of the application councillors could
really object to was the installation of a disabled ramp –
described by one as ‘zigzagging across the front of the building like a mark of
Zorro' – and whether it was in keeping with a fine Victorian building. Of course
it wasn’t, but as a pub is currently not viewed as viable the committee was
left with the choice of an empty building or a shop. That the pub had been
registered as a community asset as part of the government’s risible ‘localism’
agenda was of little import.
Today CAMRA have published
research providing more evidence how pubcos are squeezing the life out of
publicans. As many as 60 per cent of licensees tied to the big pub companies
earn less than £10,000 a year, compared to only 25 per cent of the free of
tie lessees. And at the other end of the scale, only one in a hundred tied pub
licensees earn a salary of more than £45,000 a year, compared with one in five
who run free of tie pubs.
So today, the pub trade gather. The
government proposes reforms which could ensure tied lessees would be no worse
off than those not tied, applying to all pub firms that have more than 500
pubs. It could be the start of a revival. With their parliamentary champions, like Liberal Democrat MP Greg Mulholland and indefatigable
campaigners like @Lifelandlady , we should stand beside them and make sure the coalition delivers on its promises.
We had a beautiful old pub up the road from us turned into flats last year, and another (one of the most historic in the area) became a Punjabi restaurant after years of sitting derelict. It's a crying shame, because the social life of the area is invariably affected. More than ever people don't have places to socialise, forcing everybody back inside and onto the net.
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