Healy Group takes six pubs on TaWs

Family-run multiple pub operator Healy Group has revealed that it has taken on six pubs on tenancy-at-will (TaW) agreements in the past year as it switches focus away from long leases.

Marion Healy, partner in the Surrey-based company, which runs 26 pubs across southern England, said the firm's last long leasehold it took on was the Oak at Basingstoke, Hampshire, 12 months ago.

Since then the company has taken TaWs at Enterprise Inns' Three Horseshoes in Flackwell Heath, Buckinghamshire, along with five TaWs from Marston's Pub Company (MPC): the Flying Bull in Liss, Hampshire; the Old Post Office in Eltham, south-east London; and two Bristol pubs, the Bush and Stanshawes Court. Healy Group handed back the keys at another MPC site held on a TaW, the Red Lion in Mangotsfield, Bristol, this week, after a new lessee was found.

Healy said the firm is attracted by relatively low rents and good discounts on offer with TaWs.

"Under a TaW, we could give short notice if the business does not perform but we would look to the future and hope it would fit our portfolio and continue with it in the long term."

She said Healy Group is "not a holding company" and "we will only take on a business with a possible future".

Of the other pubs run by the group, all are Enterprise leaseholds except three from Wellington Pub Company, two from Marston's and one from Greene King.

The firm has operated a TaW at the Swan in Hanworth, Middlesex, for five years, initially with Wolverhampton & Dudley and most recently with Admiral Taverns.