Should we be doing more to stop our pubs from closing?

I was reading on this forum recently that a brewery was asking £6000/month rent on one of our local pubs. This isn't a massive pub and quite rightly there are no takers for the place.

This is perhaps what the brewery want as they probably plan to sell the place for housing. However more disturbing are the restrictive covenants that the breweries and pub companies place on premises that they sell. These covenants prevent the buildings ever being used as pubs in the future. It is robbing the country of hundreds of our great traditional pubs.

An MP has taken up the issue and is campaigning against these restrictive covenants. What can we do to help?

http://www.henleystandard.co.uk/news/news.php?id=968649

HENLEY MP John Howell is backing new moves to protect local pubs.

The Government has launched a review of restrictive covenants, which can be used by breweries and pub companies to stops pubs they have sold being re-opened by communities.

Mr Howell believes that by changing the use of covenants, residents could be encouraged to use the community right-to-buy powers in the Localism Bill.

He said: “Pubs are the hubs of community life, as important to the local social scene as they are to the local economy. That has been very clear from the Standard’s Drink Local campaign.

“But time is being called on too many of our locals, depriving people of treasured places to get together in the community. We are putting the people back in charge, giving them the power to step in and save their much-loved community assets.

“By reviewing this restrictive red tape we will enable people to use their collective powers to ensure that their locals remain local and continue to thrive.”

Use it or lose it is the best advice to give.

Use it or lose it is the best advice to give.

a simple, but indeed a factual fact, fact!!!

Use it or lose it is the best advice to give.

But how do you keep open a pub when the owners simply want to close it and sell it as a private dwelling.

Henley obviously doesn't have more serious social concerns, although that doesn't surprise me. I'm in two minds about this issue. I like a lot of pubs where you can go and get a nice pint and have a good chat with people. And a lot of the buildings themselves are worth preserving. On the other hand there's far too much crime related to alcohol and far too many places where the culture is to throw lager down your neck and then bottle someone. I'd settle for pubs like in Kelham Island, the Devonshire Cat, Sheaf View, i.e. real ale pubs, staying open, and all the lager-drinking sub-discos like you get on West Street being turned into flats.

Abolish beer duty!

There are only a few large breweries that survived thatcherism which have the power to provide booze at relatively low prices, Sam Smiths springs to mind. There are lots of microbreweries around making better drinks, arguably, but the drinks cost more. Mind you, that's what the government wants - it doesn't want people getting hammered every night. They are trying to blame health issues but that excuse is debunk. They just don't want people causing trouble but alcohol is only part of the problem; people will cause trouble whether or not alcohol is available.

But how do you keep open a pub when the owners simply want to close it and sell it as a private dwelling.

If thats what they want to do with it thats their prerogative, sad as it may be.