Pub regulars save their local licensees

People power has helped secure the future of licensees at two Greene King outlets who were at risk of losing their pubs.

Regulars at the Red Lion in Old Marston, Oxfordshire pooled resources to raise £20,000 so that licensees Stewart and Diana Berry could take a three-year lease on the pub. The couple had been running the pub for a holding company since June, but faced eviction unless £20,000 was found for the investment required to secure the lease.

Twenty customers each contributed £1,000 as a loan, which is scheduled to be repaid at an interest rate of 3% over two years. Diana Berry said: "Customers have been terrific and said that they wanted us to stay because of the way we run the pub."

She added: "There is no committee involved and we are left to carry on running the pub as we think best."

Stuart and Karen Laurie are also indebted to regulars for saving their pub — the George Inn at Babraham, Cambridgeshire.

In early February, the husband-and-wife duo were told by Greene King that it wanted to turn the pub into an Old English Inns managed house and they would have to leave.

Customers rallied around the couple and started a campaign on Facebook, which attracted in excess of 600 supporters, and inundated the Suffolk brewer and retailer with letters urging a change of policy. Stuart Laurie remarked: "At the eleventh hour, Greene King changed its mind and said it was in light of the support from the customers."

The couple now have a three-year rolling tenancy.