According to the findings, the satisfaction level of tied tenants at Stonegate, the UK’s largest pubco, dropped by four percentage points year-on-year to 43%.
Marston’s also saw a decline in satisfaction levels, dropping 13 percentage points over the past two years to 72%.
Star Pubs saw the most improved level of satisfaction among tied tenants for the second year in a row, rising from 55% in 2023 to 70% this year.
Tenants at Admiral and Greene King were the most satisfied, with ratings of 79% and 78% respectively. Punch Pubs levels remained the same at 61%.
Commenting on the findings, PCA Fiona Dickie said the survey was an important benchmarking tool for the PCA.
“We want to show tenants and the industry how individual pub companies are performing against each other. It creates an important incentive for pub companies to raise their game and helps us to promote the objectives of the pubs code”, she continued.
Transparency
Dickie added: “The pubs code brings transparency into the tied pub relationship and that’s a principle we take to heart and we follow that through and deliver through our survey.”
More than 1,200 tenants were interviewed by IPSOS on a range of topics for the survey between January and March this year.
Some 158 tenants from Admiral participated, 181 from Marston’s, 154 from Punch Pubs, 214 from Star, 135 from Greene King and 375 from Stonegate.
Of those, 44% were under a traditional tied tenancy and 35% were under a tied lease.
This year’s results also showed overall average pub company satisfaction levels across the six firms remained stable, with six in 10 (61%) tied tenants happy with their relationship.
Meanwhile more than half (59%) of participants were content with their current tenancy arrangement.
Improved satisfaction
However, this was a drop of nine percentage points year-on-year, with tenants of Marston’s and Stonegate seeing statistically significant declines of 14 and 11 percentage points respectively.
There were also high satisfaction levels among those interviewed with their Business Development Managers (BDMs).
Admiral came out on top in this area, with 84% of of tenants satisfied with their relationship with their BDM, followed by Greene King and Star at 81%. Just 55% of Stonegate tenants were positive.
Dickie said: “I am particularly pleased to see ongoing consistently high satisfaction results from Admiral and Greene King tenants, and I would like to congratulate Star for another year of improved satisfaction levels.
“Stonegate has not yet succeeded in moving the dial on tenant satisfaction in the PCA’s survey. I am sure that it will be disappointed with this year’s results.
“As regulator, the PCA will use the survey results to help us to understand priorities for our resources and where we need to look to understand how pub companies are complying with their duties under the pubs code.”
