Councils in towns and cities find Community Right to Bid too risky

The community right to bid allows groups to put together a bid for an asset which the local authority has identified as having value to the community. If the Asset of Community Value (ACV) is a pub, the community will have six months to prepare a bid.

Councillor Alan Smith, deputy mayor and cabinet member for regeneration at Lewisham Borough Council, said that he was “sceptical” about the process because of compensation claims from vendors.

Speaking at the All-Party Parliamentary Save the Pub Group meeting in Westminster last week, he said: “The reason I’m sceptical about it is because should a pub comes up for sale, the community is looking at raising between £1m and £1.5m. I think that’s unlikely to happen.

“What it effectively does is delay the process. The pub still gets sold at the end of that process. That six-month period puts the local authority under quite significant risk, in terms of paying compensation out.”

Smith explained that the council has received a claim of £250,000 for compensation from a vendor because of this situation. “That is a deterrent for us to go down that route,” he added.

“It’s village legislation. If we get down the last pub in Lewisham, we’ve lost 81 pubs. By then I will give up being a councillor.”

Councillor Tim Ward of Cambridge City Council echoed Smith’s views. “I share the same scepticism, I’m not sure a community will be able to raise £1m to £1.5m,” he said.

However, Dale Ingram, a London-based pub campaigner, explained that she is “actively exploring” putting pubs on the ACV list.

Cambridge City Council and Lewisham Borough Council have both launched planning policies to protect pubs. However, Cambridge has seen backlash from the British Beer and Pub Association.