Every day, somewhere in Britain,
a country pub closes for good, says leading beer writer Ted
Bruning in the 2001 CAMRA Good Beer Guide.
Bruning, editor of CAMRA’s newspaper What’s Brewing,
says: “Surely the village inn has such potent appeal that
customers are queuing down the street? Yet one by one they
close.”
The reasons, he says, are:
Pub rents are now proportionately far higher than 20 years
ago.
Business rates for pubs are calculated according to a unique
and unfair formula. Pubs pay far higher rates than other
businesses.
Landlords are expected to make the pub their sole
livelihood. It used to be common for the landlord to have
another job, while the landlady would run the pub during the
day. Today breweries frown on tenants having day jobs, and
with the ever-increasing burden of paperwork necessary to
comply with VAT, health regulations, PAYE and so on, few
landlords have the time.
The average wholesale price of beer has gone down in the
past 10 years, but not for small tenants. They have to pay
the full list price for their beer to subsidize investment
in the town-centre circuit pubs, which lure away much of the
rural pub’s weekend custom. |
The basic level of provision in a rural pub - bare benches,
an outdoor gents and no ladies’ loo at all — once
considered adequate is no longer acceptable. Today’s
country pub requires huge capital outlay compared to its
predecessor, with maintenance costs to match.
Compounding all this over the past 20 years, Ted Bruning
says, has been house-price inflation. “Most country pubs,
especially pretty ones, are worth 50 or even 100 per cent
more as a private house than as going concerns. The
temptation to give up the struggle and cash in is
overwhelming. “At the current rate of closure, there will
be no country pubs at all in 20 years time. Of course, that
won’t happen. The trend will bottom out in time — but
when?”
Ted Bruning makes a series of demands aimed at saving rural
pubs now. They include:
Licensing reform to allow longer opening hours. Midnight
closing on Fridays and Saturdays would increase the
competitiveness of country pubs.
A review of the rating system. Rural shops and Post Offices
are entitled to 50 per cent relief from business rates, but
for pubs, relief is at the discretion of local councils.
Country pubs should have the same right to mandatory relief
as shops and Post Offices. |
Tenants, especially those who pay rent to pub companies,
need more freedom in the ales they can stock, and at better
prices. Buying national brands cheap and charging tenants
top dollar for them may make short-term sense for
shareholders, but in the longer term it’s disastrous.
Pub rents are too high. Statutory rent tribunals need to be
introduced to replace the industry’s own inadequate system
of arbitration.
City-centre circuit pubs, with all their attendant problems
of drink-related nuisance, need to be curbed by stricter
planning and licensing controls - and tougher enforcement.
And Ted Bruning puts forward a further, simple idea to boost
the fortunes of rural pubs: “TV has been the country
pub’s biggest enemy,” he says. “Too many people seem
content to sit at home watching progammes they don’t
actually enjoy and then grumbling about them at work next
day. Don’t! Instead, register your protest by switching
the telly off. Then go to the pub.”
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