The last piece in the pubs planning jigsaw

22-Mar-2013 - Last updated on 12-Mar-2017 at 04:34 GMT

Related tags Lytham st annes Public house

Benner: "What CAMRA wants is for pubs to be seen as vital community amenities"

Jigsaws are quite the thing in the Benner household. Our six-year-old has a real passion for them. As the craving has grown we’ve had to turn to charity shops to hold off financial ruin. One of the problems, though, is half of the puzzles have a piece missing and you never find out until you get right to the very end.

This frustration sums up how I feel about the Government’s approach to pubs and planning.

The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) introduced in March last year is great for pubs. It has policies that promote and protect them. These are so powerful that they are already saving pubs weekly as planners can use the rules to dismiss appeals to turn viable, valued community pubs into houses or whatever.

Take the Victoria Hotel in Lytham St Annes, Lancs, saved at appeal because its loss as a social amenity would be unacceptable, or the Plough in Shepreth in Cambs, where, using the NPPF, planners saw off developers at appeal. If a pub is valued by the community and viable, the new rules are helping to save them. Well done to the Government for getting this right.

The problem is the missing piece. It remains the case that a pub can be demolished without planning permission. An unscrupulous owner can simply call in the diggers and minutes later rubble lies where once stood a proud pub. And local people get no say in this at all as it is regarded as ‘permitted development’.

Pubs are in the same use class as supermarkets, betting shops and even pay-day loan stores. I’m sure you’ll agree that none of these provide the same amenity as a pub. The Campaign for Real Ale’s (CAMRA) survey of pub closures last autumn revealed that over 200 pubs have been turned into mini-marts since the start of 2010; 130 of these have been bought by Tesco Express. The community gets no say as it’s in the same planning class as pubs.

Often, the first that local people hear about a sale is when there is an application for a new sign or facade. This undermines the NPPF and the Localism Act, which enables the creation of lists of assets of community value.

Good news is, I know where the missing piece of the jigsaw is and it’s easy to put in place. It needs just a tweak via secondary legislation to the Town & Country Planning Act. I’ve let the pubs minister know.

Before all you free-market followers accuse me of trying to keep unviable pubs open, this misses the point. What CAMRA wants is for pubs to be seen as vital community amenities and that there is a proper process of planning permission in place so that local people can be consulted on their future.

That’s not much to ask and is no more a burden on business than putting in an application to change the pub sign from the Bull to Tesco Express.