The #GreatBritishPubcoScam - a Post Office Scandal times ten.

The Pubs Crisis: A National Scandal in Plain Sight

All over the country, pubs have been — and continue to be — lost in ever-increasing numbers. The root cause is not consumer behaviour or cultural change, but the deliberate, irresponsible management of the national pub estate by private equity-owned pub companies.

The British Queen, 34 Picton Street, Camberwell, SE5. now a block of flats

These companies devolve all responsibility for the operation, upkeep, and maintenance of their properties to tenants, lessees, and publicans. These publicans — self-employed entrepreneurs in all but name — are then held entirely responsible for maintaining buildings they do not own. They are expected to invest in repairs, modernise facilities, and deliver a level of service and hospitality that meets 21st-century expectations, all while operating on a knife-edge of financial viability.

Pubcos inflate property values, control the narrative, and exploit the asymmetry of information to extract unsustainable rents. The result is that tenants are routinely charged more than is feasible for the property — often for premises in a poor state of repair. Meanwhile, the private equity firms that own these pubs generate their return on investment through rent extraction and a second major revenue stream: the supply tie.

Under the tied model, tenants are forced to buy beer — and often wine, spirits, soft drinks, and even cleaning products — exclusively through the freeholder’s supply chain. The pub companies, with their enormous buying power, are able to negotiate ultra-low wholesale prices from brewers and producers. But instead of passing on these savings, they apply profiteering markups, charging tenants far above market rates.

This two-pronged stranglehold — inflated rent and inflated beer prices — allows pub companies to control every aspect of a tenant's business, while extracting the maximum possible income. It is a rigged system, designed to funnel money upwards while burdening the individual publican with all the risk and none of the support.

The consequences are everywhere: run-down, under-invested pubs with limited beer choice, deteriorating buildings, and exhausted licensees. People don’t visit pubs that feel unloved, unwelcoming, or unviable — and closures follow. Meanwhile, small independent brewers are excluded from vast swathes of the market, locked out by the beer tie and shut out of the managed estates of large pub chains.

At every level, consumers lose out — on quality, on choice, on value. Only a dwindling number of truly independent pubs remain: those owned outright by individuals or small pub groups not beholden to distant shareholders. The exact number of such pubs isn’t easily accessible, which itself is telling. But what is certain is that this situation — the result of decades of extractive business models — has left many communities without any pub at all.

These are often working-class communities: housing estates, former mining villages, rural parishes, and suburban peripheries. Places where the pub was once the heart of the neighbourhood. With their closure comes a loss of social connection, secular space, and local identity. The impacts on mental health, social cohesion, and community resilience are real — and worsening.

This is the pubs crisis. And it is not accidental. It is the logical outcome of a broken market, a captured regulatory environment, and a political failure to recognise the scale of the harm being done to one of Britain’s most vital social institutions.

The avalanche of closed pubs being converted to other use, all over the country is evidence of this state of affairs and no ONE is doing ANYTHING about it, except wringing hands.

Oh. The Plunkett Foundation. Mustn't forget about column inch worthy saved, all over the country, community owned pubs. Let's tot up the figures there eh? The community pubs' movement has been going since 2012 - though a few pubs had been bought by groups of locals before amatuer hour David Cameron's ideas for Big Society came into place with the Localism Act.

Since 2010 around 10,000 pubs have closed forever. Since then around 200 have been saved by their community. Genuine Bravo and PROPS to the Community Pub Movement but at the same time BOO to the miserably tiny scale of success in the face of the utterly risible failure of the pub sector - a supposedly competitive market producing the best possible outcomes for the consumer - to improve prospects for the future of the world's original social network: The British public house

No wonder the pubs crisis is accompanied by an epidemic of isolation in communities and loneliness among all age groups.

If we act as communities, it might be just enough, just in time

The Pub, Britain's unique secular social construct, admired and envied from afar as the world's original social network, is under existential threat. All over the UK closed and dying pubs are the consequence of late stage rentierism gone mad: All over Britain closed, boarded up formerly tied lease freehold pubs are on the property market 'suitable for alternative use'. EVERYWHERE there's a run down closed pub there's a community around it who wish THAT pub was a Brilliant Local they could be proud to call THEIR PUB. But they, local communities, gradually stopped using 'their pub' after pubcos bought most of Britain's public house stock during the 1990's and financialised the life out of bricks and mortar and aggressively profiteered publicans they rented out more than half the national pub estate to as 'tied leases' which in effect are contracts to indentured servitude.

The parlous, perilous state of the nation's pubs is wholly down to the #GreatBritishPubcoScam - general pressures on all retail businesses that have decimated high streets have impacted pubs of course, but the underlying weakness of tied pubs is they don't make profits because the freeholders extract as much as possible through manipulation of rental values and by grotesquely overcharging for beer and other product supplies their tenants are obliged to buy through the 'tied supply contract' at, generally, around 40% over open market pricing.

☝ THIS ☝ pernicious overhead of the hidden TIED supply contract is why tied pubs in particular are extremely vulnerable to outside financial shock like rapidly rising business rates, and mandatory wage increases [which most good employers want to pay but struggle to because of the rentier sitting on their back].

HOWEVER this means that all over the UK are distressed assets, detritus of the disastrous tied pubco model of vulture capitalism that's gripped Britain's pubs for the last 35 years ... are available to be bought, brought back into use and made into fantastic, proper, bustling, busy, financially sustainable Locals again.

All that's needed to make this happen is a people's pub company, call it a national trust for pubs if you like, funded by public subscription, of the people, by the people, FOR The People to bring pubs into the commons and back to life at the heart of communities, all over Britain. AGAIN.

WHY *CHANGE* DOESN'T HAPPEN

WHY *CHANGE* DOESN'T HAPPEN 

Or: Why we end up consulting, or working for organisations and institutions that research, on how change COULD or SHOULD happen rather than MAKING CHANGE HAPPEN

The simple truth is that everyone who's not got a private income because they're from a super rich background has to earn an income to pay the rent. Having a job to pay the rent means by and large that you are fully occupied not doing what you want to do to begin to be part of the change in anything.

Brian Eno articulated this during a Basic Income UK meet-up at St Clements Church Kings Square, London, in December 2015.

The Future is HERE, and NOW is the time to design it for ourselves

It's not complicated really. Humanity needs to wake up and demand the utopia all humans REALLY WANT but are always pushed away from by the ludicrous hubris of 'our leaders', who almost exclusively are severely emotionally damaged, immature, intellectually compromised, misogynist men imbued with a toddler's lust for grabbing all the sweeties for themselves.

They are few. We are many. The many can quickly make the few irrelevant if only we act directly, non violently, strategically, within the law, in ways that enable people to come together to collaborate... Joyously, with a vision of a different future, from the grass roots, where no one is left behind. 

The Future of Pubs could provide a route to the future of all of us.

UPDATE on The Podcast from The Pub #AllForTheLoveOfPubs

Curating the story of the slow, dreadful, deliberate, Death of The Pub. A tragedy of the commons. 

There's me and Robert, the licensees who kick started south east London's pub revolution in December 1995 when we opened The Sun and Doves and DOGSTAR, at either end of notorious, dangerous, 'Front Line' Coldharbour Lane within a week of each other. Together, without really being aware of it, we were about to change the social dynamic of south east London forever. We met at Camberwell Magistrates' court getting our licence transfers and our eyes met across the crowds of a court waiting room that echoed with teeming offlicence and corner shop owners shouting and hollering trying to make sense out of impenetrably confusing court lists ... our paths took parallel, often exruciating, turns for much of the next decade and more as we fought off pure greed of our Great British tied pubco Rentier spiv freeholders... 

 

That makes us the ones who've both been through the Pubco grinder; then there's John, an investigative journalist who's written about predatory development of pubs, and Liam who spent 15 years fighting to save an Ex-Tied pubco pub in SE London and succeeded, it's now being refurbished and will reopen as a Freehold Free of Tie operated by an experienced licensee with a small pub group of his own, in a year or so. Liam has great stories to tell about the toture of the planning system, and how to make it better. 

We also have Sarah, who's a musician singer songwriter who started gigging in pubs 30 odd years ago and has seen the #GreatBritishPubcoScam consume several of her all time favourite pubs that have been demolished, converted or totally homogenised into big business pubco outlets like Fuller's managed etc.

We've got Danny, a documentary filmmaker (Micropubs the New Local) helping with technical and production support, and a few other people are offering voluntary support too... We've got a venue to do the recordings from- The Earl of Derby SE14 - hosting the Podcast from the Pub

A lot of people, from all walks of life, are showing interest in joining the conversation. Everywhere we go we meet people whose lives and loves have been really badly impacted by the social harm these appalling tied pubcos have done while ransacking our built environment, our sense of place, the foundations of our secular culture - from all angles. They all want to tell wonderful stories of encounters, extraordinary events, wonderful meetings of minds, friends made in pubs and how without pubs these can NEVER happen. What unites all of is our concern and LOVE for well run, proper brilliant local pubs and our desire to get them back. And we all know it can be done. 

We're as NERVOUS as can be about getting it right, we're going to start doing some trial recordings until we get comfortable with the format of presentation and order of episodes and look and sound and stuff to make sure it all comes across professionally and confidently and purposefully when we go live.

SO THERE'S STILL WORK TO DO.

All this so far is totally shoe-leather and boot-laces and personally I'm totally broke because of what's happened to me over the past 13 years since I was evicted from The Sun and Doves when I vowed never to rest until we see the back of the pubcos and their shitty disgusting Rentier capitalism bullying business model that RUINS PEOPLE'S LIVES, erodes community everywhere and is destroying a massive significant irreplaceable vital part of British history. The Pub.

YOU CAN HELP US.

If anyone reading this has a small amount of money you'd be prepared to donate weekly / monthly, I mean anything from a quid to a million, we'd be incredibly grateful for the support. I'm 65 and next week I’m starting as a home delivery driver for Sainsbury's. I do need the exercise mind. 

We've invested around £500 so far in broadcast equipment, mics, website url fees and bottom line basics and so on... We need to be on top of all social media accounts, a fully working, good looking and accessible website, buying in some admin skills, and marketing support, and, really, we need to be able to pay for costs or editing and production initially rather than depending on goodwill...

We're determined to make the podcast reach as many people as possible, all over the UK and the world where we KNOW these stories have to be told and they will be received with interest everywhere they're heard... #AllForTheLoveOfPubs is going to be where everyone who LOVE pubs are invited to come and contribute to a growing national conversation about The Future of Pubs and the solution to the pubs crisis. 

THE TRUTH IS A POWERFUL TOOL.

We'll tell the truth, honest, well informed, fact checked and verified. And there is a LOT of truth to tell. LOTS of people we've been talking to are saying #GreatBritishPubcoScam is very like the Post Office Scandal. Unbelievable, simple, shocking, scandalous, nasty, malevolent, greedy, horrific, cruel, bullying abuse of corporate power over individuals who have no voice and are completely ignored. The conversations will be tough, the stories uplifting, sad, joyous, emotional, depressing, but all rounded up with passion, love, and full of hope for the future of pubs because we all really know at heart that we can make great change happen if only we have a common cause we can, all of us, together can rally around.

Since the #CrookedHouse in Himley, and the inspiring way real people's outrage has welled up into an amazing online community of support for making sure it's reborn we reckon the palpable wave of pent up anger there is about the private equity ram raid on OUR pubs - everywehere - has at last been spilling out across the country. It's very encouraging to see people getting so vocal in their concerns about OUR PUBS.

The message below is from a German friend who's figured out from afar more about why British Pubs are on death's door and how the hedge funded blight of the #GreatBritishPubcoScam is responsible for much of the devastation than do millions of people here. 

"Well in times like these with huge parts of the UK public been fucked by the government the whole pub story is a great analogy for the ordinary man suffering. So it should attract large audiences."

IF YOU'D SUPPORT US WITH A REGULAR REPEAT OR ONE OFF DONATION TO HELP US BUILD FOUNDATIONS WE'LL FIND WAYS TO THANK YOU - 

☝☝☝ This ☝☝☝ link is where to donate to The People's Pub Partnership Donorbox is our means of collecting money. It was set up for PPP ahead of a community share issue which was headed off when the owners of a pub got permission for full change of use when their appeal to overturn the unanimous rejection of their application at planning committee was granted in full by the Planning Inspectorate. An all too common shocking turn of injustice. The hundreds of objectors included licensees of other local pubs who argued that this pub was a vital asset, an integral part of the local area's vibrant social scene, essential to its continuing success. Anyway that charade will be one of our episodes and is another experience of the egregious lack of protecton for Britain's pubs that lay behind the reasoning for starting up the podcast: Outrageous planning decisions like this one HAVE to be made totally unacceptable and a lot of that is dependent on planners and people who love pubs eveywhere fully understanding what is going on in plain sight all around us.

When is a Pub MORE THAN A PUB?

MORE THAN A PUB

Craft Union, one of the various pub 'brands' the egregious zombie pub company Stonegate Inns devised to game its reprehensible business practices around the Pubs Code 2016 regulations [which I helped bring into place with years of dedicated voluntary work] using the More Than A Pub trope for its own marketing.

Irony abounds in the pub sector

BTW. 

Just occurred to me: Many people in this group may not know, but this is common knowledge to those of us who work professionally in the pub sector, understand the true value of pubs to their communities, and have a decent overview of the different kind of activities various different kinds of pub companies get up to right across the country as the pubs crisis continues to accelerate unabated by anyone but plucky members of communities who fear losing THEIR Local Pub forever, who then get together with other local people to mobilise as everyone here in Community Pubs Network have done.

ALL pubs represented in this NETWORK, with rare exception, were run into the ground by one of the big tied pub sector pubcos. Stonegate [Enterprise Inns], Admiral Taverns, Marston's, Greene King, Punch Taverns, and Star Pubs & Bars [Scottish & Newcastle/Heineken] all of them fully paid up members of the British Beer and Pub Association.

These 'pub companies' are all private equity driven vehicles designed to extract the maximum amount of profit possible out of thousands of individual tied lease tenants. They do this simply by charging tenants profiteering rent and wholesale supply prices which in effect controls the nature of each publican's supposedly entrepreneurial pub business.

So: Tied tenants don't invest in the bricks and mortar of 'their' pubs, simply because they don't make enough profit because their pubco freeholder takes it all. So tied pubs have been chronically starved of investment for decades... THIS private equity greed is what created The Pubs Crisis. This private equity greed is what makes OUR pubs all over Britain unfit for purpose, and this is what stresses hundreds, and hundreds, of Local communities all over the country into fearing the permanent loss of THEIR LOCAL.

It's been going on for decades since the 1989 Beer Orders opened up the pub property market from being one kind of monopoly to transition to another, more aggressive form of financialised monopolistic practice, and the ONLY people doing anything about it are Locals who care about their pub for all the right reasons but who know next to nothing about owning and operating complex mixed retail public house businesses out of unfit for purpose run down broken commercial property that needs comprehensive retrofit and refurbishment to make it fit for 21st century purpose.

It's not a pub market we have in the UK, it's a RIGGED microcosm of disaster capitalism

Use it or Lose it trope

Another holding post for a subject that needs to be put to rest. 

The Use It or Lose It trope

While I get the 'use it or lose it' trope, partly because it's used so often, it's not a true reflection of what's needed for #SavingBritainsPubs. 

This is because by the time people have to start saying use it lose it the pub's already too far gone to survive as a functional trading business.

Pubs fail, as all businesses do, when people stop using them... The question is WHY do people stop using pubs? Pubcos - backed the cabal of private equity Big Business they're a part of, including the British Beer and Pub Association - say the British public have changed our habits and don't go to pubs the way we used to - we don't use pubs as often as before - so therefore demand for pubs has fallen - and continues to decline as 'the market proves' and the only response to this reality is that 'we have to face the difficult reality' that many pubs have to close forever, and must be sold for alternative use, 

This is disingenuous diversion from the fact that people - WE - stop going to pubs when they're run down and become unfit for purpose of being public houses because they haven't been invested in for DECADES. So it's correct: We don't go to pubs the way we used to but it's NOT because we don't WANT to go to pubs - it's because we stop using pubs when they aren't good enough.

Use it or lose it puts the blame for business failure on the customer.

The fact is it's the responsibility of the people running the business, that's publicans on the front line and in the case of tens of thousands of pubs, the freeholders who control the rent and supply prices. It's THEIR job to make pubs work professionally and properly and they DON'T.

And the reason for that is the #GreatBritishPubcoScam 

Getting everyone in Britain and across the world who admire and LOVE good, well run pubs, is essential to overturning the conventional ownereship and operational model for The Pub as Britain's unique secular social construct.

And this issue is a central part of the podcast #AllForTheLoveOfpubs @ForTheLoveOfPubs @AllForTheLoveOfPubs we're working on it now (February 2024)