Pub is the Hub is set to grow

Everybody knows it's not easy running a rural pub. In many cases, pubs in hamlets and small villages teeter on the edge of viability with marginal profits. Recent years have seen costs spiral as Government agencies impose ever-larger costs. Business rates, the Disability Discrimination Act and national minimum wage legislation are just three areas where licensees have found themselves having to shoulder an increased burden. It's often difficult in the extreme for licensees to find time to think about how they can get the tills ringing by diversifying.

But every piece of external help that will allow licensees to boost their takings and profits is vitally important. That's why the expansion of Pub is the Hub is such welcome news.

Since it was set up three years ago, 103 pubs have been helped to create a sustainable future by diversifying into opening shops, post offices and generally putting themselves at the centre of village life. Another trial scheme, locals on-line, has seen 30 remote rural pubs offering computer training.

Pub is the Hub reports that 240 inquiries are being received from licensees, pub groups, village groups and parish councils each month asking for advice about how they can diversify to increase the chance of retaining their pub. Organiser John Longden is a realist. He accepts that "pubs will continue to close". But communities need to realise that it's a case of "use it or lose it".

What is remarkable is that Longden has been running Pub is the Hub thanks largely to the generosity of his employer, surveyor Gerald Eve, who has allowed him to devote one day a week to the project. But there's no doubt that a lot more can be achieved now the scheme has found proper funding as it moves into its next stage. Pub is the Hub patron Prince Charles is among those now supporting the scheme financially. Longden describes the Prince as a terrific ambassador for Pub is the Hub, regularly calling in on pubs that have taken part as he travels around the country. If Prince Charles continues to have problems with his wedding venue in Windsor, maybe it's time the industry repaid his support byfinding him a decent pub function room for his post-wedding knees-up.