Union on track with smoke ban plans

The Union Pub Company (UPC) believes all its pubs will be ready for the smoking ban by next March.

The tenanted and leased arm of Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries claims it is one step ahead of the game after it began planning for the ban in earnest earlier this year.

An audience of more than 250 attending the pub company's annual awards ceremony at Alton Towers heard how the estate was facing up to the ban, expected to be introduced next summer, with confidence.

Managing director Stephen Oliver told the audience of licensees and suppliers that 90 per cent of the 1,900-strong estate - some 1,700 pubs - had an outside area to work on. And of these 80 per cent (1,350) pubs were already progressing their plans.

UPC operations director Andrew Andrea said a key part of the pubco's strategy was creating external food and drinking areas, rather than simply "smoking zones", after noting the experience of venues in other countries.

"We've been encouraging licensees to either do something themselves, or sign up to our own programme, which will see us spend between £7,000 and £9,000 on their pub to create an external area," he said.

"About 1,000 pubs have taken up the latter option, and 350 have been progressing their own plans.

"We started work on the ban early as we weren't sure if tenants would take up our proposals or not, and we were aware that there were many pitfalls they could fall into. Now we are confident that we'll have everything completed by March."

Although the changes being made to pubs were modelled on the Scottish legislation Andrea said they were flexible enough to fit in if there were unexpected twists to the government guidelines, which are expected to be confirmed before the end of the year.

Fresh thinking at UPC​

- the pubco is investing £10m on external drinking areas

- solutions are tailored to each pub, following trials at pubs in Burton-on-Trent

- these include giant umbrellas with heating and lighting, gazebo-style structures, and different types of awning

- all developments provide cover, light, heat and screens to enable all year-trading 

- UPC is also focusing on ways of bringing in more revenue from catering, including 'al fresco' food workshops

- a DVD explaining the processes - is being put together for all UPC tenants.