Yes -I'm that angry that I can leave a sentence ending with a preposition and not go and fix it.
Pubs are special places. They're a place where people can get together in public for no particular reason. Yes, village halls, community centres and sports clubs have their places but you have to have a reason to go to them. You don't just hang out there on your own or with a friend or two in the vain hope there might be someone with whom to have a casual encounter or conversation (yep, caught the pesky preposition that time).
There's no compulsion involved, we go to pubs because we like pubs. We like drinking in pubs...and let's face it, even the drinking isn't compulsory.
Even the government have recognised that pubs are important in the community - they allowed pubs to be registered as assets of community value (ACV) under the Localism Bill.
So why in the name of all that is logical is it so easy to turn a pub into a non pub? Even when that pub is the only one for miles around?
When the law was changed to reduce the grip that the major brewers had on the range of beers available, an evil twin was spawned: the PubCo. Thus is the way of unintended consequences.
PubCos don't even brew beer any more, for the most part, they're just property barons.
The PubCos appear to be all lovely and cosy in their makng available of licensed premises for people who dream of running their own pub. However, they typically promise much but many (most?) deliver little. Worse than not supporting their licensees, it seems in some cases that they actively look to undermine the business just so they can churn a couple of new people through the pub, perpetuate the lack of success and then claim that this pub is "unviable" so they can sell it to developers.
Like most uber companies, PubCos know their onions when it comes to the law...and how to exploit the letter of it to circumvent the spirit.
So they regularly sell on their premises to supermarkets who can change the pub into a shop without having to ask permission for a change of use.
We can register these pubs if we get wind of the change of hands going on, we can even register them prior to any sale being contemplated, but it seems that the slippery evil twin, and his cohort the supermarket will still do everything in their power to stop communities stepping in...how?
- by fighting the ACV registration by using language like "pubs don't offer any community value beyond selling alcohol", or similar things despite using language like "pubs are the centre of their community" on literature used to get support for their business.
- By leasing buildings to supermarkets on a short term basis, rather than a long lease or sale since such arrangements do not count as a relevant disposal that a community could bid for.
- By arranging to sell the premises very quietly and hoping no one learns of it in time to mobilise people to get the ACV registration done.
Punch Taverns wish to offload one of the pubs they own to address the deficits in their balance sheet. The financial issues they have are a matter of public record - and everyone knows they are taking their marginal pubs and getting rid of them. Pretty much everyone knows that they have a basket of tactics they use to do this since pub premises with no other development potential are not fetching the best price at the moment.
So, they're looking to sell this big pub to Co-Op. There's already been a bit of a planning tussle in the past leading to a referral to the planning inspectorate to overturn the decision made by the local authority.
The pub in question is the only one within about 1km walking distance for thousands of households. It was built to serve the estate it sits within.
It's not everyone's cup of tea, nor does that matter. It has a loyal band of regulars who have repeatedly offered help and advice to Punch to make it more financially successful. All this fell on deaf ears.
These guys know that they have no "right" to have a pub and that if they want one, they have to support it. So when they learned it was possible to exercise the right to bid for a pub being sold they set to, and got it on the Asset Register and started planning how they would raise the money, as a community to buy it, fix it up (it's been neglected by Punch for several years) and then run it. This is when I met them.
Punch have not yet notified the local authority they are still planning a "relevant" disposal.
Instead, they've stripped out the fittings in the place and are now, from what we're being told, planning to demolish the building.
They're legally entitled to do this without planning consent since they still own it, provded of course they do the various legal bits and pieces required of them. There is little, it seems, we can do to stop it.
I'm sure, if challenged about what a low act this is, they'll give a well-practiced footballer's studs-up tackle shrug of feigned innocence whilst calculating how difficult it'll be for both local authority and community group to salvage anything from the wreckage.
Presumably they think that if the singed earth policy doesn't put us off still wanting a pub in the place then the planning regs when they apply to build something new will fall in their favour since they have more bottomless pockets than either communities or councils.
What I can't get over is how spiteful this all sounds.
I can't believe Punch are expending time, effort and money just to make us feel bad - I would imagine they've got more important things to do. But I do wonder if it's to help them make stronger cases for lack of viability in future?
After all, they've closed the pub and they say it's unviable - if the community make a go of it then the unviability statement was wrong and perhaps they won't get believed in future when they want to do other changes of use.
We might be down...but we're not out.
I, for one, will continue to expend a considerable amount of time and effort in trying to bring back this pub.
I'm also now even more interested in the low-life, underhanded tactics employed by PubCos.
Oh - and Co-op...if you are colluding with this I'm not sure how you can claim to be an ethical business. In my books this makes you just as bad as Tesco.
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