Pitfalls of Big Society pub idea

Locals running locals may sound a great plan, but who's going to support them?

I imagine there must have been some wry smiles on the faces of Morning Advertiser​ readers when Prime Minister David Cameron, as part of his Big Society proposals, said people should be encouraged to run pubs threatened with closure.

No doubt many nodded sagely when they heard Cameron and commented: "That sounds fun, running the local." Little do they know.

I recall speaking some time ago to a man who had taken on the tenancy of a pub in St Albans. After three months in the job, he was haggard, hollow-eyed and visibly thinner. "I thought this would be a doddle after years on the production line at British Aerospace," he said.

"Get up at 10, have some breakfast, open at 11, close at three, play golf in the afternoon. Open again at six and spend the night drinking with my mates."

He sold his golf clubs. Nobody had told him draymen have the temerity to turn up at dawn. He had to monitor the amount of beer in the cellar and clean the lines once a week. He had to order food, hire staff and thoroughly clean the pub. And this was before all-day opening...

I'm all in favour of saving threatened pubs and I support the idea of "localism", which means local people running local affairs. But politicians should give careful consideration to such grandiose schemes as the Big Society and think through the implications of suggesting running a pub is all beer and skittles.

Around 30 pubs in Britain are run by their communities. The best-known is the Old Crown in Hesket Newmarket in Cumbria. The pub and the small brewery attached faced closure and the villagers banded together to form two co-operatives that run both enterprises.

The Old Crown is the last pub in the village and the community would have lost its heart and soul if it had closed. But running a small pub in an isolated area is punishing work. The Old Crown has had several changes of managers and it's only the passion of villagers that keeps it running.

The Dykes End in Reach, Cambridgeshire, was saved from closure by the villagers. But after a few years it was sold to a private owner, who runs it successfully as a freehouse with a small brewery at the back. Busy people found the daily demands of running a pub too much.

Local owners​

In the neighbouring county of Hertfordshire, the Red Lion in the village of Preston was once owned by Whitbread. When the brewery decided to turn it into a steakhouse, attracting unwanted traffic from nearby towns, the villagers bought the pub. Today, the number of owners has dwindled to a handful and the major shareholder lives in Cornwall, raising fears that he could sell up.

In 2005 I made the long journey to rural Cheshire, where the Swan Inn in Kettleshulme stands on the verge of the Peak District. A year earlier, the owner of the inn had announced he planned to turn it into a private house. The villagers objected vigorously and raised the asking price of £425,000 to buy the Swan.

Seven directors ran the pub, with the backing of an aptly-named Beer Committee, which organised supplies of beer. But the directors always planned to hand over the running of the pub to tenants once the Swan was back on its webbed feet. Today it's a regular tenancy.

The pubs I've mentioned are all in small, rural locations with close-knit communities that frequently meet and run other affairs in their villages. It's a horse of a different colour if a big town or city pub faces the axe. My local in St Albans, the King William IV, was built by Phipps of Northampton as a large roadhouse. Over the years it has been a Chef & Brewer, then owned by Scottish & Newcastle, before becoming a Jim Thompson Oriental pastiche restaurant. It was rescued by Mitchells & Butlers, who turned it into an Ember Inn.

It's a huge pub and, while it has a decent cask beer list, it's food-led. If the locals had to run it, we would need not only the expertise of people who know how to source beer, wine and spirits but also how to employ a large number of staff, including chefs who prepare food from early lunch until 10pm every day. The King Will is open all day, every day, and until late at weekends. Running it demands full-time pros.

When David Cameron made his Big Society speech, CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) welcomed his suggestion that local communities should run threatened pubs. But it added the rider that civil servants should advise on such intricacies as employment and licensing law, as well as running a small business.

There's the rub. The Government plans to bring a blowtorch to public services. Thousands of civil servants face the axe and the expertise CAMRA wants may no longer be available.

Save your local by all means. But if it all goes wrong and the new owners cry "Help!" will there be anyone listening?