It will be too late for some. And with 31 pubs closing every week, it is perhaps a proverbial drop in a pint glass. But it can be revealed that Britain is in the grip of a quiet, possibly slightly merry, revolution.
Thousands of people are fighting back against what has been dubbed the attack of the “clone towns” that has seen treasured locals turned into flats, supermarkets and, whisper it, even estate agents.
The Plunkett Foundation, a charity that helps community groups to organise themselves to rescue prized institutions from corporate giants, has disclosed that, with its assistance, 34 pubs at the hearts of villages, towns and city communities are now owned by the people who prop up their bars – and that a further 34 are in the pipeline.
The preferred model is for locals to take “community shares” in a pub from which they benefit financially if they are able to guide the pub to profit.
But it isn’t about the money – small beer as it usually is. People are, it is claimed, rejecting the market forces that condemn their favourite pubs to be sold off to developers in the property price boom in favour of “taking control of how their communities look”.
“It has really taken off,” said Katherine Darling, press and communications manager at Plunkett. “That’s for a number of reasons: there is an increased awareness of the rate at which pubs are closing, a proliferation in the number of ways in which people can find funding, and there is also in England a law which allows pubs to be named assets of community value by the councils if locals nominate them.
“That gives communities a specified amount of time to come up with a bid, should a pub come up for sale.”
About 21,000 pubs have closed since 1980, half of those since 2006.
Cultural change, such as a decline in drinking, is certainly part of the reason, with per capita alcohol consumption having fallen by 18% since 2004. But the trend has been particularly hard on public houses, because landlords have had to pass on their increasingly high overheads to customers. Drinkers have taken to staying at home, and with property prices booming in many parts of the country the result has been inevitable, and, for some, greatly upsetting.
Only last week it emerged that the Star pub in St John’s Wood, north-west London, had been bought by an estate agent, with flats expected to take over the top floors. The 200-year-old institution featured in an Arctic Monkeys video, and the Housemartins’ 1986 hit, Happy Hour, was set there. Its former patrons stretch across the rock ages, from Sir Paul McCartney to former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher.
In the same week the property developer owner of the Carlton Tavern in Maida Vale, west London, did what Hitler’s Luftwaffe couldn’t. The wrecking ball came three weeks after the firm had been denied planning permission for flats and at a time when Historic England was considering whether to list the building.
However, many communities were refusing to give up on their locals, according to Dave Boyle, a consultant for Plunkett. He is trying to help a community to save the Rose Hill Tavern in Brighton, whose original United Ales and Stout frontage and stained-glass windows have been part of local life for 144 years.
“These pubs are places to have a drink, of course,” he said. “But actually it is about communities rejecting ‘clone towns’, where every shop and building looks the same, in favour of taking control of how their community looks.”
Any doubters of the benefits may wish to speak to Julian Ross, who led the first-ever co-operative takeover of a pub in the small village of Hesket Newmarket in Cumbria. In 2003, 125 locals, worried that the Old Crown was about to be swallowed up by a brewery or closed down, committed £1,500 each. They rather optimistically hoped for the 5% or 6% returns that building societies were paying at the time. Those sorts of returns have not materialised. But the group has achieved returns of around 3.5% for their investors, certainly more than any building society is offering today. “That is only around £40 a year,” Ross admitted. “But you can have that in vouchers at the Old Crown and that makes for a good night. Our beer starts at £2.60.”
Ross, a freelance translator, added: “We have a tenant who has a lease and runs the business for us. We knew what side of the bar we wanted to be on. They pay a premium and a rent and the rest of the profits are for them.
“The lease just spells out what we want to protect. There isn’t a television, for example; they are only allowed to bring one down if England is in the World Cup final, and then they have to take it back up once we have won.”
Since the takeover, the pub’s turnover has tripled. “We have a bigger dining room, and so more covers,” said Ross. “But I think that if you own part of the pub you care more. It is the anti-McDonaldisation thing. Every town centre is the same. The same shopping precinct, Tesco on the corner. And we all hate it but think we can’t do anything about it.
“But with this we just thought, ‘You are not having that’. I think that sense of being part of something is extremely powerful; that sense that something can be done. And we did something.”
PUBS UNDER THREAT
The Green Dragon, London
The Green Dragon has stood on or near its current site in Winchmore Hill since at least 1726; the current building is approximately 125 years old. The new owners immediately boarded it up on purchase. Locals fear they are planning to build flats and a supermarket on the site.
Rose Hill Tavern, Brighton
The 144-year-old pub was listed last year as an asset of community value (ACV), and locals want to put together a bid to buy it. It is currently owned by property developers, but they have been blocked from converting it into flats and have put it up for sale.
The Black Cap, London
One of the capital’s best known lesbian and gay pubs and drag venues has been closed by its owners just one week after Camden Council in north London awarded it ACV status. They wish to turn the building into flats.
