Hamish Champ: Disappearing petrol stations and government help for pubs
To those many of you noticing the growing number of pubs boarded up across the country I ask this; is it just me, or have you also spotted a sharp decline in the number of petrol stations around the place lately?
Two near my house in South East London were recently closed down and boarded up and building work to create blocks of flats is now well under way. Three others have ceased to sell fuel, they have been stripped of their pumps and are now all-day car washes, manned by dodgy-looking blokes in possession of high-pressure hoses and a disturbing predilection for Belgian techno music.
Finding a trading petrol station is now almost as hard as finding a pub that's open for business and happy to claim that all's right with world.
Of course there are still a few open ones around - petrol stations, that is - but, like the pub trade, what seems to be doing them in are the supermarkets (cue obligatory pantomime-esque booing and hissing together with shouts of "He's behind you!" and "Oh no he isn't! Oh yes he is!", etc).
In much the same way as the giant retailing concerns appear to have cornered the market in cheap booze - it used to be cheap CDs, but then who buys CDs these days? - any supermarket worth its salt has a petrol station positioned alongside it, selling fuel at a few pennies a litre cheaper than yer BP or Shell outlet down the road, assuming there is one down the road.
I mean, it's not like there's a decline in the demand for petrol, is there? Yes, it's become bleedin' expensive. But people are still driving their cars or riding their motorbikes, despite it costing a King's Ransom to fill up the damned things. So why close down petrol stations? Please don't tell me they're unprofitable!
Hey ho, another one of life's mysteries…
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I was interested to read a number of articles last week on the likelihood of a government subsidy for pubs.
On the back of the dire straits' many licensees now find themselves in there is talk of some sort of financial support package for those pubs that are central to their communities but which have fallen on hard times.
Presumably, though, these would be freehouses, owned and operated by the person or persons who stand behind the bar and keep everything running.
I couldn't see any administration coughing up for a pub that had a large landlord behind it. Government ministers, whether they be Labour or Tory, would surely argue it was the job of the pubco to step in and help, rather than the taxpayer.
One might safely predict that such a line would find little favour with thousands of hard-pressed licensees the length and breadth of the country!
