Access Denied: Infiltrating the bar

http://www.thelawyer.com/access-denied-infiltrating-the-bar/1009946.article

The Anonymous woman who comments that she does not understand, above, neatly exhibits why everyone should be outraged by the Bar and what goes on there interminably.

The article is written objectively with insight. The Anonymous comment comes from a point of evident blinkered ignorance - NOT the sort of person anyone should want, or ever find, representing them in law anywhere. No doubt she's taking home a couple of hundred grand a year for making poor quality representations in a self satisfied, totally self confirming and congratulatory way; and feeling great and good for being mediocre. There is little justice in law unless you are exceptionally well off in this country. Perhaps this is the way it is all over the world.

Just because it's the way it is doesn't mean the status quo should not be attacked.

The law is an ass, most often because the brains behind it are those of asses too.

Camberwell Online October 24th, 23/10/2011 at 3:17 pm

http://www.camberwellonline.co.uk/2011/09/camberwell-information-day/#comment-378753

Did most of the Oxjam takeover rounds of Camberwell last night. Missed lots of acts just because there was so much on. Was great to see everywhere busy. It really demonstrates what Camberwell COULD be like already if it were not for usurous pub companies sucking the profits from their pubs thus reducing their tenants’ ability to reinvest in the area and IF the local authorities had anything joined up locally.

Why weren’t Hermits and errrr, Stormbird not part of it?

Noticed that NEVER GIVE UP has been given the heave by Stormbird. I wonder why.

See this thread around a viewpoint of St Paul’s cathedral from the Tate Modern end of Millennium Bridge, it’s fascinating and some of it is visually stunning: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mandarinokid/243679734/

Camberwell Online October 24th, 2011 at 5:06 pm

Speaking of St Paul’s Cathedral, I was in the vicinity today for my bankruptcy hearing in the Rolls Building — it was civilised and calm although the lighting in that newly appointed space is absolutely dreadful. Working there will be an awful strain on anyone’s eye.

So, hearing done, and given that my financial ruin has been brought about by corporate greed, thought it worth taking a walk up to St Paul’s to see whether the ‘Health & Safety’ issues preventing public access to Christopher Wren’s glory, thus losing the church £16K in missed revenue, are plausible. They are not.

It’s quite clear that the church has been compromised and has closed in order to put pressure on protesters to leave. The whole atmosphere of the place is calm, peaceful and composed. And the people protesting are polite and willing to bend over backwards to comply with requests to change anything they are doing which, inadvertently, may cause a threat to public safety or to the church.

Bumped into that NICE YOUNG MAN who used to be the manager at Funky Munky. The one with slightly red, wavy long hair. He’s older now. As am I.

BISC accused of failure on AWP tie

http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Forums/News-Article-Comments/BISC-accused-of-failure-on-AWP-tie#570644

It's been broadcast many times that TISC BESC and BISC all failed on AWP. Getting the AWP tie banned altogether would be what some people call 'low hanging fruit' for those fighting for a free and fair market in pubs.

HOWEVER. In Britain, this common sense and common decency lacking back water of blind stupidity, unlike any other country in the world lacking a command economy, it's perfectly reasonable for large corporate bodies to totally fleece the customers they are totally reliant upon for their income.

It's known as profiteering. It's part of our culture.

Findlay: ‘Stop sucking pubs dry’

http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Forums/News-Article-Comments/Findlay-Stop-sucking-pubs-dry#570639

HANG ON!

Is this a BANK talking? One could be forgiven for thinking the company that employs Ralph Findlay is actually a BANK needing to be bailed out. BUT NO, it's just another tired old pub company.

Hmmm... the government should 'stop sucking pubs dry'? What is this 'sucking pubs dry' mullarkey Ralph is on about? He should know - he presides over the decisions which lead to Marston's, like all other pub companies who operate tied leases, posting healthy profits while its tenanted estate slides into embarrassing dilapidation and its tied lessees falling into financial penury with many completely viable pubs shut up waiting for new suckers to come in and waste their life savings and lives shoring up the pubco.

What profits are Marston's posting at the moment? Are they failing?

These sort of comments from a senior employee of a pubco asking for government handouts would be unbelievable if it were not for the consistency of the attitude of entitlement that goes along with the 'business model' that has been killing pubs for decades.

'We're making great profits but our pubs are under financial pressure from errrr - the government'.

Huh? It just doesn't stack up Ralph.

RBS closes in for £700m pubs sale

http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Forums/News-Article-Comments/RBS-closes-in-for-700m-pubs-sale

Breathtaking.

RBS's Galaxy estate? More like RBS's pie in the sky Black Hole.

RBS have been touting around this galactic fleet of 900 fading red dwarfs for years. To no takers. Only a couple of months ago, if memory serves, news was that RBS had pushed out this toxic galaxy of pubs to Sapient Corporate Finance with a price tag of £600million (Remember that? - Sapient was parping off a load of GUFF about what a great time it is for Private Equity to be buying into the tied pub sector because there's still such great yields to be had out of these estates by nailing lessees to the floor).

The value attached to the sale is fascinating to note. While property prices in feet on the ground Real World still fall, values in Outer Space Pub La La Land appear to continue to rise in the worst recession EVER. With pubs particularly closing faster than ever before, and with more than half the recorded failures in the pub sector being tied leases, it makes sense then that the average price per pub in this fire sale appears to have gone UP about £90K since Sapient got involved.

After the best part of thirty years deep into the disaster of the Beer Orders the last tatters of the Emperor's New Clothes are still being paraded around and, even though the whole business model of the tied pub sector has been pummelled in the public stocks, the lumpen hulk of the holed galactic starship keeps circling towards the inevitable end game of a financial black hole. And it looks like people might still be buying into the dream.

Who will be the space cowboys holding the reins when the galaxy finally gets sucked into oblivion will be something to behold.

Camberwell SE5 flickr pool:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pauletroad/6205088728/in/pool-32334552@N00/

Just part of the tedious churn stirred up by pub companies like Scottish & Newcastle Pub Company et al sweating as much they can out of their 'assets'. Temporary closure of pubs is a pedestrian part of their testing the market to the limits. 15% of their estate shut at any point is part of their business model.

This will become a pub again. Likely run by a chain operation. Look forward to how they do with it.

Camberwell Online

http://www.camberwellonline.co.uk/2011/09/camberwell-information-day/#comment-372656


For the record, wherever that may be, John Friary is a good man who has done huge amounts of good for many, many people, selflessly, for decades.

There is no way on earth he deserves anything of what he’s been put through and what’s still happening to him now.

If he were a local councillor, I’d vote for him without hesitation.

There. I wish I’d said that a long time ago.
Click to EditRequest Deletion
J Mark Dodds says:
October 15th, 2011 at 5:01 pm

As for Gala Bingo — it’s a place where divine interventions are common occurrences. This MUST be true because Pastor Adeleke and his fine wife, in all their finest fine finery, say so.

Consequently ‘they’ are openly advertising their religious services now.

However, as ‘they’ say. I am SURE that before Pastor Adeleke and his fine wife paid 3 million quids for the Cinema — it was just as godless as the rest of Camberwell and there was no divine intervention there whatever.

Back to the subject on topic. God and his divine interventions with the Redeemed Christian Church of His Name; re the link above heartfelt apologies to Mrs Jessie Jenkins for missing out the ‘I’ in her “Now No Tablets, No Pain” name.

And congratulations to Mr R. B. Charteris; Cambs who says: “I WAS NOT A BIT RELIGIOUS — SEVERE ARTHRITIS — NOW A NEW MAN”

Church of England Leader Canon Malcolm Widdecombe, died 2010, is quoted as saying something very nice about the RCCG championed healer and his abilities to make many people walk home after arriving on crutches or in wheelchairs.

a shadow of my future self (a moment ago | edit | delete)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/markdodds/6237801980/in/photostream/

noele - it won't be permanently shut as a pub because Scottish & Newcastle Pub Company and Royal Bank of Scotland (the freeholder) will make £200K a year out of the site by leasing it to someone like me who will invest heavily in it to make it busy again - and then be fleeced by the conditions of the lease and the supply agreement - a contract which they will enter 'freely into' with full knowledge and the foresight to understand that if they do not sell it on to someone else at a healthy profit before the first rent review, they will have their profits removed legally by the landlords and their cronies

H@shim A - you got it! How are things? For me it's like WOW thank the gods I'm not still being dragged down by all that madness of dealing with a numbskull pub company and densely stupid bankers.

RE: Barclays: banks still willing to invest in pubs

http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/City-News/Barclays-banks-still-willing-to-invest-in-pubs

It's the usual thing that's come about in the pub sector with The Blind (pubco CEO's) leading The Blind (various Bank CEO's) for three decades:

1) A bunch of not very bright people (pubco CEO's), when it comes to understanding how pubs or any form of retail or real industry actually work, got their feet under the table of the sector and applied 'financial instruments' to set about 'modernising' the sector.

2) A bunch of not very bright people (bank CEO's), when it comes to understanding how pubs or any form of retail or real industry actually work, got approached by 1) who wanted to borrow massive amounts of money so they could buy huge pub estates and then offer long TIED leases to thousands of highly skilled and visionary people who had their fingers on the pulse of the public's purse who would create all that vision of modernisation in a sleepy stuck in the past, traditional way of pub life, using entoriely their own skills, experience and, errrrm, hard earned cash from redundancies, remortgages and retirement packages as investment.

One set of clueless 'financial whizzes would lend a huge amount of cash to anther set of financial whizzes that would be secured against the freehold values of thousands of pubs which would be looked after, nurtured and maintained, improved and increase in value through the hard work and investment of other people whose aim was to provide themselves with a stable income and career in the hospitality sector. ON TOP OF THIS was the added insurance that these thousands of people would be buying all their beer from the pubco's at DOUBLE the price they could get it elsewhere - which meant that the whole world would have to collapse before the debts would get anywhere near being difficult to service.

TREBLES ALL ROUND eh!

We all know that banks talk total rubbish all the time. No point reporting empty rhetoric from them about lending to the pub sector.

The ONLY conditions they will lend to new businesses are against bullet proof property valuations about to be taken on by trading businesses with a proven track record of financial success and with guarantees left right and up to granny central.

Where a bank might is so deep in an existing business it will lend more in a desperate hope to get itself out.

Not great for ongoing business either way.

Orchid under threat of bank takeover

http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/City-News/Orchid-under-threat-of-bank-takeover

Well at an average debt per pub of around £140,000 it's difficult to see what the problem is here.

But no matter, everyone in the pub industry can take comfort in the knowledge that banks, as opposed to pubco's, are getting the hang of how to run pubs now, having had so much experience at managing insane amounts of debt held against totally toxic assets where the sums just don't stack up.

Who better to take on insolvent assets than companies whose expertise lies in making insolvency appear normal and when it all blows away to dust, getting the tax payer to pick up the bill?

Johnnie's Cafe. Coldharbour Lane.

Johnnie's Cafe. Coldharbour Lane., originally uploaded by a shadow of my future self.

Great breakfast lunch and dinner

Urban 75 again

http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/sun-and-doves-pub-owner-evicted-after-by-brewery-after-huge-rent-rises.281670/page-3#post-10524832

I posted initially because a conversation was started here by others speculating about 'my' pub's closure which could benefit from some informed response. Far from seeking sympathy my hope is to inform as many people as possible about what is happening to pubs all over the UK - using the Sun and Doves' as example seems to make sense as it's the direct result of widespread abuse of the beer tie by one pubco whose behaviour is identical to other pubco's whose sole aim is to asset strip the national pub estate without any form of direct investment in the bricks and mortar. Quite a lot of pubs have been closing and it's not all cheap booze from supermarkets, the smoking ban, beer duty and changing consumer habits. A lot of it is because so many tied pubs do not make enough profit to be able to reinvest in the business - because the rent and beer prices imposed by the pubco's are so high.

slowjoe; there have been no intentional histrionics on my part. It has been a tough time for a long time but I don't feel especially hard done by - my experience is similar to that of thousands of other tied tenants. The experience of many years of tenure and two seemingly irrationally aggressive rent reviews led to my learning more about the tied system than many other tied publicans just because I managed to stay in business longer than most because the pub was busier than most I had to endure it for longer. These experiences of the tie's abuse to a pub business led me to being outraged by the lie of being 'partnership' with a tied pubco and drove me to setting up the Fair Pint Campaign with other tied pubco tenants who were financially struggling and similarly disaffected by their experiences of pubco's.

After ten years the length of this involvement with a struggling business certainly led to my finding day to day business at the pub grindingly difficult to be engaged and positive about, I struggled with depression for a long time and was suicidal for a period. Going into work was not easy... I'm NOT seeking sympathy - just recounting what happened. From 2006, because there was no profit, I was unable to draw income directly from the business. That sort of thing doesn't make you feel very good as an employer really but I know many tied pub tenants in the same situation. The Sun and Doves was on the market for three years after the rent review began because the only way I could have paid the back rent bill when the inevitable rise hit was from the proceeds of a sale - but once the rent review went a year past deadline there was little point in selling because all proceeds would have been swallowed by back rent and trade debt and left me bankrupt anyway. By that point all I could do was either hand the keys back, walk away and go bankrupt, or plough on determinedly with arguments for why the rent should NOT increase and hope that Arbitration or High Court would agree with my rational position about the business's ability to pay against the flimsy, groundless, but habitually accepted arguments presented by the pubco. Essentially the pubco won in the end but the arguments used were the basis of the Fair Pint Campaign's position which has since been adopted into recommendations for reform of the pub sector by Select Committee. Not a bad result overall really.

So slowjoe undressed worked for me and was met with indifferent treatment by his employer. My apologies slowjoe. The point you make about the impact of the beer tie on a business's ability to pay its staff is a good one - although I didn't bring it up above I did make this point as part of my written evidence to government Select Committee hearings: the direct impact of my 2000 rent review, where rent increased 68% was that we had to cease table service and go to 'order from the bar' and make several staff redundant. Until that point we paid well over the minimum wage but as fixed costs increased the business's ability to pay ahead of the minimum wage waned as profit became non existent through a combination of higher beer supply prices and a huge simultaneous increase in rent and business rates. That being said I know that many people who worked at The Sun and Doves had a different experience to yours slowjoe but since you bring it up I have no doubt that I was distracted and uninterested, I'm sure for a long time. Sorry. Longer serving staff earned more and general staff retention was always consistently well ahead of industry average. When the pub shut, of eleven people we had three staff who worked seven or more years and several others who'd been there for three.

While ringo has had loads of consistently awful experiences along with all his friends who repeatedly were served shit food by shit people who treated him and his mates 'like shit' - well ringo - shit happens - and there were undoubtedly ups and downs over the years. Sorry the pub was not as perfect as you'd expect. But while you went through all that shit there were many more people who had consistently good experiences who were regular and frequent customers. So thanks ringo for inviting an opportunity to respond to your sensitive and insightful overview. Perhaps you will have the opportunity to become a landlord for someone someday. Given your grasp of the property situation you might like to take some hints from the tied pubco handbook.

Wuli Wuli is excellent, really. As told above the front of the book is the familiar menu you’ll see in any standard Chinese takeaway. Go some pages in, though, and the menu changes radically to Schezuan.

I’ve been there four or five times now, never cease to be impressed by the quality of their cooking and well judged combinations of flavours. Chillis are used a lot, and some dishes are far too firey for me to cope with but they are receptive to requests for less heat and knowledgeable about what they are serving. I assure you, it’s really good.

The chitlings are delicious too. I have a photograph of the menu somewhere which shows some interesting dishes with some even more interesting spelling mistakes, like Flogs Legs, but irritatingly right now can’t find it.

The wine list is keenly priced well presented and, perhaps unusually for a Chinese, good.

Go there and enjoy it.

RE: Government eyes alternative pubco reform

http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Forums/News-Article-Comments/Government-eyes-alternative-pubco-reform/%28offset%29/10#567285

Whatever. There is no chance, whatsoever, that pubco's will reform. This is ludicrously obvious and one has to ask how MANY more strikes can there be before these has-been lumbering, useless meddling middle men, are declared out? Once and for all.

Apart from unshakable evidence that pubco's are completely recalcitrant, deaf and blind to stern direction by Select Committee and to threats from any quarter that they MUST change their ways, the pubcos are incapable of reform.

1) they don't want to reform
2) they can't reform - they are addicted to debt and can't reduce income without defaulting on payments.

Pubco's soon will be a bit of bad history

RE: Punch lessee case goes to full trial

http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Forums/News-Article-Comments/Punch-lessee-case-goes-to-full-trial/%28offset%29/50#567191

Stories such as George's only help push the balance of awareness towards the Tipping Point at which the pub sector will experience major reform, be it forced by legislation or by economic circumstance. Evidence of the widespread cancer in British society that is the symptom of pubco's meddling with the nation's pubs has become inescapable.

The activities of the likes of Punch, Enterprise, S&NPC, Admiral and the tenanted sides of Marston's, Greene King and slavish mimickers such as Shepherd Neame are more and more understood by the general public, just because their impact is so widespread. Get these examples:

ON the day of leaving 'my' pub before S&NPC's bailiffs came to change the locks:

1) the lorry driver who came to remove the shipping container that had the lease company's bar, fixed seating and other equipment in it, was moonlighting from his first job which is... YES! Full time hard working Tied Lessee of a Shepherd Neame pub!
2) the removals men who came to move my modest personal belongings, like the bathroom cabinet and bed said one of their best mates was a Tied Lessee of a pub in south east London - for 33 years - and last year he was evicted, bankrupted and made homeless - 'Terrible isn't it? Just like what's happening to you' is what they said.

A few days pass and I get pulled over by the police, basically because my car is falling apart, and they do an MOT inspection at the roadside and condemn it. Fair enough I thought, as I was - ACTUALLY in all honesty - going to take it to a garage to have it scrapped after going round to my ex's to do breakfast for the kids and take them to school. Funny thing about this one is I was in sight of the pub and when they asked to see my driving license the policeman asked "where is this address then?" - because they had stopped me on Coldharbour Lane and the address is the same street. I pointed at the building and said: 'see that place with the boarded up windows? That's where I lived until ten days ago when I got evicted and that's why mine is a tale of woe.' WELL we got talking about pubs and why they're closing down everywhere and the second policeman got in the car to fill in the Vehicle Condemnation Form - then told us about his best mate, in a Bedfordshire village tied pub, who's working 90 hours a week and has just started doing early morning breakfasts to get more money in because he's struggling to pay the rent. 'They treat him like shit' said the copper about the pubco.

Tales of everyday folk are beginning to abound with the ramifications of the sleazy pubco business model.

Dear Jude

I don't have any formal notice about PPP yet – I've been networking it furiously across people like John Lewis and CAMRA and Plunkett Foundation and this was NOT meant for general release – it's a letter to a friend outlining what PPP is about. It's wordy but that's because it's describing quite a lot of detail of what needs to happen to bring it all together.

The end result of PPP once it gets going will simply be a growing group of great pubs that people love going to for all manner of good things. Like pubs should be. And that, basically is simple.

Making this simple thing happen in the market we have is complicated but doable if approached intelligently with the right goal in mind and if the people involved are all brought along with the idea properly. It is ALL ABOUT PEOPLE – people are what make pubs tick at every level and this is designed to make it happen sustainably while teaching people – staff, punters and everyone alike, how to do pubs in a commercially successful, cooperative / partnership way of business.

PPP's ultimate delivery is about taking dead boozers that have been run into the ground by pubco's over the last thirty years, buying them freehold and investing in them wisely to make them really attractive places to be in and low carbon output businesses that people want to visit and spend money in, then managing them well – this bit is not rocket science, it's happening all the time; all over the country small pub companies are setting up and making dead pubs busy for private equity purposes then flogging them off to big pubco's when they get to fifteen to fifty units. This makes a few people into millionaires – and leaves the pubs to slowly sink back into the homogenous mire of pubco medicority. PPP's difference is its constitution and that the assets – the buildings – are held in an unassailable trust s no one can get into and flog off.

Quite simply it cannot fail as long as there is enough capital to start up and we don't make ridiculous decisions with the décor.

Best and love

Mark. 07768 096 761 mdodds58@gmail.com



Outline of PPP 21.08.2011

The PPP has to be a revolution at every level - it has to change the way people see business and how they see their behaviour at home and in private. It has to make people see that they can make an impact on global warming - at least by investing in PPP and at best by changing the way they do things.

PPP can do this because, basically, this is what everyone wants. We're DOING what everyone wants to do individually to save the planet but feel utterly impotent to actually bring about in their own lives. They pretty much all know now that If the future's not green, there's no future and they are scared. They are so scared they can's admit they're scared. PPP deals with it all and makes them feel good. And positive about their lives because PPP makes them feel like maybe there really can be a future that's not just doom and gloom. AND they can get pissed in the pub WHILE it's positively changing the way the planet is being used.

The business has to be set up with the goal of being revolutionary on every level - in terms of ownership, how it consumes energy, how it handles waste water, foodstuffs, surplus energy and segregatable general waste like paper, card, metal, glass, plastic - and minimising what goes to landfill and conceivably even earn from its waste handling - such as with spent oils for biofuels or the sort of things you were mentioning. Rain water retrieval would water the gardens and sink and domestic accommodation water used for toilets. It may be possible to treat toilet water on site in some cases. All cooking will be electric. Ranges will be induction. No gas needed. Green energy supplier. Maybe Good Energy, we'll do a deal with one of them - it will be high profile publicity.

The company has to be clear how it interacts with its supply chain - road miles and sourcing local produce - working with farms as we've been discussing - and encouraging everyone it interacts with to adopt practices which reduce climate impact and create a better society. Not too much to ask in return for business.

Then there is an enormous social impact the business can have if it's set up to look at these things from the beginning. It will work with other like minded businesses from the outset, work with / use other employee owned businesses - like John Lewis / Waitrose - to bring best practice into its operations and then feedback and publicise performance information that will encourage other businesses to look at the way they operate. And none of this costs much if planned in at the start stage but all will bring people to the pubs and some will generate income:

Training - built in high quality training, practical and life skills - tapping into the massive range of training programmes funded by government. It would work with jobcentres to get young people into work - like Jamie Oliver's Fifteen does. The pubs will provide services tailored to the needs of their local communities. Over fifty / oap lunch clubs, meeting space for voluntary organisations, computer facilities and internet access for people who cannot get on line. Training costs for this would almost certainly be covered by govt money. They can hold art shows, quizzes, knitting circles, book clubs and loads of other things that are easily possible but not done often now.

The pubs will be collection centres for small things like domestic batteries and cd's which should never go to landfill but are fiddly to recycle from home. They will take in parcel deliveries for customers and a 'leave your key' service, simple stuff like that. They will be local information hubs through in-pub notice boards and via their websites.

All the stuff you've been suggesting about farms is good here - with a strong enough network of businesses it would be possible to make farms work better. And if that works then the employment and training stuff would kick in there too. Even, down the line, there could be a working with offenders programme to get criminals into being functional members of the community. I know, I know.

Brewery/ies should be part of this too. And probably apples and pears for cider - that market is going great guns but there seems to be an awful lot of orchards lying fallow which I imagine would be cheap to buy. It seems to me these have the potential to be very profitable to the business if they are part of the supply chain rather than external suppliers. All the waste handling there could possibly even feed into making biomass pellets for the pub estate's in house power generators.

Composted waste from the pubs could feed into the process and fertilise the farms, or the pub gardens. There could be wormeries.

The business plan will be on a website and we'll be going for massive publicity - It's a revolution coming. Pubs for All, All for pubs. That sort of thing.

BrewDog have done a great job on sorting out how to do a web based IPO. A combination of the functions their site has worked out and the functions on Brunning & Price's site cover just about everything PPP's website needs to do:

http://www.brewdog.com/ http://www.brunningandprice.co.uk/

For the talk to camera explaining all the business plan so people don't need to read it, I've got the Letra Media guys interested in doing the script and filming. They did this with Clare Nicolson and Alabama 3 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6RszaTFC4U&feature=share and this Thomas Truax track is on their site: http://www.letramedia.com/video.html

And the guys who did BrewDog's website are going to do a holding page for PPP

Now for a commercial break. Careful, if you watch all these links it will suddenly be tomorrow:

Here's a TED talk from 2003 http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gross_on_new_energy.html Bill Gross is a genius

And you'll like this one: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_phillips_creative_houses_from_reclaimed_stuff.html

And you should see this one because Ken Robinson is just brilliant: http://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html

Here's Jamie Oliver's. I have a lot of time for this man: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go_QOzc79Uc It's not really anything to do with PPP

Arthur Potts Dawson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ89At9Xxws He says he'll be a non exec director of PPP if I want

Amory Lovins How we will win the oil end game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMTCNOlozTA

Thomas Heatherwick is fascinating: http://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_heatherwick.html

Here's some bumpf on ARUP working with TED. I'm trying to get ARUP to support PPP on building design. They are members of the Employee Owners Association - as is PPP now. http://www.arup.com/News/2009-07%20July/20_Jul_2009_Arup_participates_in_TEDGlobal.aspx

This is Jim Trussler with that generator I mentioned: http://uk.ibtimes.com/articles/20110801/hay-heating-homes-clean-renewable-cheaper-than-coal.htm Their machines aren't in industrial production yet

Solar panels are already falling in price to the point they are making electricity that's close to being as cheap as grid delivered power. I have a relative who's a professor of photovoltaics at the atomic level. He's one of the world's leading boffins on thin film PV and has spent the last twenty years researching how to make this as efficient as silicon. He says the price against efficiency is competitive on a par with grid and in two to three years these solar panels will be so cheap that they can be incorporated into any building and pay back energy bills to the user.

http://www.localsolarpanelquotes.co.uk/?gclid=CMud8NiX36oCFcRO4QodPVFj7w http://uksolarinvestment.com/Solar-Investment/

Last, for now, David Read, who's CEO of Prestige Purchasing, very bright, very connected believes in all of this, thinks it's brilliant and is doing pro bono mentoring because he likes the idea and me and Nicky http://www.prestige-purchasing.com/

Oh then there's this David Preece who's an academic Professor, lead on change and pubs and stuff at Teeside University wants to work on stuff with PPP - a bit complicated to go into now. I've put him in touch with Jonathan Mail, policy director at CAMRA. They seem to be getting on like a house on fire. I've got a fair bit of other interesting leads going on as well.

I'm sure there's something quite big I've completely missed out. But hey. I'm going to bed.

This is my LinkedIN explanation of PPP

August 2011

Working on The People’s Pub Partnership; putting pubs at the heart of their communities. A radically different pub company from the norm, with a constitution like the John Lewis Partnership's.

PPP is a vibrant, genuinely sustainable and profitable SME designed to provide stable careers and rewards for workers, with reliable returns for investors. Consumers will be given the opportunity to take part ownership in their pubs.

PPP will serve great value, high quality products and ambiance to everyone and increase the social capital of the communities it serves. The pubs will vitally engage with customers and be proactive social hubs.

Each pub will be refurbished to the highest practicable low environmental impact standards using sensitive processes and low carbon technologies to make highly energy efficient buildings. Recycled, reuse and responsibly sourced materials will be used throughout their development.

Environmental and ethical responsibility will permeate the operation through serving fine, regionally brewed craft beers and ciders to complement excellent food made in house from natural supplies. Staff will be well trained, professional and knowledgeable. The pubs will hold events that match the needs of their audience, from art shows to quizzes, from darts to book clubs, and provide services such as cd and domestic battery recycling, mail drop off, free wifi and computer access for people who cannot access the internet... this is called tackling digital exclusion

PPP will put pubs where they should be - right at the heart of their communities.

Capital will be from a mix of sources, from direct investment by institutions and high net worth individuals concerned with the state of the pub sector and to crowd funding on a large scale which will enable thousands of people to invest in bonds at amounts from £100 to £1million with varying returns based on levels of commitment.

--
Mark

J Mark Dodds FRSA

07768 096 761
etc

Hi Dan

Thanks for responding. Yes I own the toxic ease on The Sun and Doves - have done since 1995 - and I know James Wilmore as well but that's just coincidence if you know hime too. I wanted to 'link in' with you because of your connection with Common Capital and the work I'm doing on The People's Pub Partnership. I think there's probably a lot we can do together at some point fairly soon if you're interested.

I'm really pushed right now because next Friday I'm being evicted from the pub by Scottish & Newcastle Pub Company after a seven year fight over my 2005 rent review. During this horrible time I had a nervous breakdown, set up the Fair Pint Campaign and refined my ideas about cooperative working and sustainable business practices which led to my PPP proposal. I've been working on such ideas since before I signed the lease on The Sun and Doves in the first place - when even the suggestion of employee ownership made solicitors and accountants roll their eyes as if I was a silly child.

Now though, I have a lot more experience and some intellectual clout in the pub industry and the zeitgeist has moved on. PPP ticks a lot of boxes for a lot of pressing issues that are all around us now. It is a revolution of sorts but at the same time there's nothing intrincially new about any of it - everything the project proposes already has successfull working examples to look at and use as a model. What has not been done before is all these separate models coming together in a joined up way in one place also that connects directly with communities. I've been working hard on growing the network of people and organisations who are essential to making the project come together and be stable and now it's quite developed. I think it's perhaps three months away from being at a serious fund raising stage (taking into account evictions and other related hiatus) and 2012 is where it will kick off.

Perhaps we can take this further soon? realistically I'm going to be completely absorbed by fighting fires with the forces of evil pubcodom for the next couple of weeks but it would be good to pick up then if you have time.

My email address is mdodds58@gmail.com and telephone number is 07768 096 761 would be good to take it up.

By the way. Have you come across Brewdog? Their Equity for Punks scheme is interesting; http://www.brewdog.com/blog-article/equity-for-punks-own-part-of-brewdog

Best wishes

Mark

6 October 2011 14:44

subject: so sorry about Sun and Doves

Its closure is a devastating loss for our whole area - social and economic.

I live across the road on Flaxman. I am so sorry this has happened to you after all you did to make that pub brilliant. I actually work for the BIS committee in Parliament, I did not know you were giving evidence to them but I was pleased when they recommended finally legislating against the beer tie - too late for you though.

I would dearly love to imagine you could repoen it but it doesn't sound like it. Do they really think someone else is going to rent it from them? Have they seen what happens to closed pubs around Loughborough Junction? what a foolish, greedy, usurious, short-sighted group they are - they have single-handedly destroyed a local mini community.

Jessica

Dear Jessica

Thanks for taking the time to get in touch. I wonder if you know Louise Whiteley?

The fallout from pubcos is all over the UK. What they have been doing to pubs for the last quarter century is asset stripping the nation. It's a cultural crime of enormous proportions. The Wickwood Tavern on Flaxman could have remained a pub had it not been for its being owned by Youngs - who now brew no beer and have been moving their estate into tenanted and tied over the last ten years or so because it makes so much more money for them than managing their pubs themselves- and without all the hassle of having to look after property and to pay staff to serve customers. Much better to get lessees to do ALL the work then steal everything they earn through a combination of applying the beer tie outside the limits of its original intention and by aggressive rent reviews.

Not sure you know this but I'm one of the founders of the Fair Pint Campaign. We were instrumental in getting TISC BESC AND BISC to know what's really going on and my own experience at The Sun and Doves is what informed me directly about the behaviour of pubco's.

I will never be back at the Sun and Doves unless I get to buy the freehold which is an extraordinarily remote likelihood. The pub is a big income maker for Scottish & Newcastle Pubco and is very likely to be let to a pub chain outfit like Grand Union - pubcos are looking to get chains into their leases now because they think there's less chance of them going out of business than individuals.

The writing is on the wall for companies like S&NPC their management is utterly flawed and their practices unsustainable. As these companies fail there are opportunities for radical change in the pub sector but only for a limited period. Once pubs have been on the market long enough they will be granted change of use - and once that happens there is no turning back the clock on British history.

It's one reason why I'm working on setting up The People's Pub Partnership now. The John Lewis of pubco's if you don't mind the shorthand. If you'd like to know more about it as it develops I will add your email to a mail list for it. Would you mind me doing that?

Once more thanks

Best wishes

Calls for a split in the BBPA

http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Forums/News-Article-Comments/Calls-for-a-split-in-the-BBPA#566938

The BBPA is conflicted from top to bottom.

“We are about the members and we are there to promote everything they do.”

Pubco's, the members on one side, hammer down the prices the Members on the other side, the brewers, charge for their beer; then sell that beer onto their estates for twice or three times the price they bought it at - and they don't even touch the product. No they just sit on their stripey backsides all day doing nothing except speculating as to why all their pubs are going down the pan and thinking of new ways to invent claims against their tenants.

it's worth A reminder about that phrase: 'the increasingly discredited BBPA'. The BBPA's been doing a great job of this all on its own for the last few years. Impossible for them to be the mouthpiece for their Divided Membership.

RE: Quercus Pub Co ‘is facing closure’

http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Forums/News-Article-Comments/Quercus-Pub-Co-is-facing-closure#566811

Arf arf arf. David forgot to come back to The Sun and Doves for his main course and to tell me the ten things he knew I was doing wrong - the ten things which led to my being evicted by Scottish & Newcastle Pub Company and being made benkrupt:

1) Signed a tied lease
2) Signed a tied lease
3) Signed a tied lease
4) Signed a tied lease
5) Signed a tied lease
6) Signed a tied lease
7) Signed a tied lease
8) Signed a tied lease
9) Signed a tied lease
10) Signed a tied lease

What are the ten things David Elliot did wrong? Starting with:

1) Getting involved with OPERATIONS?

S&NPC really are are a totally useless bunch of fools from top to bottom. They don't even have a Company Secretary in the UK. No one to advise them legally at board level, in the whole of the UK.

http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Forums/News-Article-Comments/BBPA-attacks-report-on-pubco-and-tenant-relationships/%28offset%29/10#566486


RE: BBPA attacks report on pubco and tenant relationships

Kickstart your pub career with Mitchells & Butlers. CLICK HERE to search 100's of jobs onsite today!

WOW! The Publican's Morning Advertiser is getting right in there with targeted ads.

As said in the post that has been removed.

Brigid accepts the criticism then denies it.

That's about as far as she can go. The fact is the pubco's - who are her very well funded organisation's paymasters - totally ignored all previous TISC BESC and BISC and, in recognition of that the inquiry Peter Luff presided over made it unambiguously clear: the pub industry would be given 18 months to get its house in order and if it did not, severe action would be taken to force the pubco's to come to heel.

That being the case, the pubco's - true to form as always - completely ignored the politicians AGAIN and spent the time fiddling around with meaningless changes to already meaningless, empty codes of practice.

Of course the committee had made up its mind before Brigid and her paymasters appeared, sheepish and stammering, in the committee room before them - the evidence had been gathered already, collated, analysed and digested and what it said is 'THE PUBPO'S HAVE DONE NOTHING YET AGAIN'.

Bend over and take a spanking.

IN an 18 month period between 2006 and 2008 Punch had over 6,000 instances of churn in their estate. This was when their entire estate numbered something in the region of 8,000 pubs. It wasn't 6000 individual, separate, pubs that changed lessee hands in that time; most of the 6000 had had two lessees in that year and a half. SOME had had as many as four or even five. So the number of individual pubs that had changed hands was closer to 3,000, I can't remember the exact figures, but it was over a third of the entire estate had churned in that brief period. Until we found this out the people who were Fair Pint founders thought we knew a lot about the industry. That was when we were naive and just learning about the true extent of the tied beer pubco cancer and all the secondaries and tertiaries it's sent out everywhere that are lodged deep into the whole of the pub sector. It's a disease that will take decades for the industry to recover from - IF it ever manages to rid itself of the cancers in the first place

http://www.facebook.com/groups/157750540945214/?id=227356000651334¬if_t=like

Steve. Recently I met a retired ex M&B managed division guy who told me one of his closest colleagues and friends who worked as BDM in the M&B tenanted division absolutely hated his job because he was continuously signing up new lessees to tied leases which he knew would bankrupt them. When they were going through their documentation for assignment or new lease he was already thinking about how to market the pubs when they went down the pan. To put this into timeline context: The guy I met left the pub industry seven years ago. All the pubco's work along the same lines, I've been deeply involved through the Fair Pint Campaign at all levels of this industry and I am constantly amazed to find that there is no bottom to the pit of pubco poo. These business hooligans have nothing but disdain for lessees and simply believe that a tenant's soul, life, material goods and savings belong to the pubco from the moment they are stupid enough to sign a tied lease.

from: Mark Dodds. No Fixed Abode

23 September 2011

from: Mark Dodds. No Fixed Abode

TO:
Representatives of Scottish & Newcastle Pub Company

Re: Mark Dodds / The Sun and Doves Public House,
Camberwell, London SE5. Outlet 116144

Since 23 September representatives of your company have attempted to deceive police by making false allegations about the circumstances of my leaving the above pub.

Your employees' repeated false statements include telling the police that I have committed criminal damage and have stolen property belonging to your company. I left the building in compliance with the terms of your company's eviction notice and these serious misrepresentations of fact must immediately cease being reported.

Further to this your company's actions are an abuse of limited public resources as there are no legitimate grounds for your employees to be vexatiously wasting police time. Your employees' motives are clearly aimed at intimidating me vicariously by attempting to deceive third parties into harassing me in the place of your company taking civil action to attempt to recover goods it does not own. Immediately inform your employees to cease and desist from making these accusations.

For clarity: If your employees continue to make false allegations and insinuations to the police regarding my supposedly criminal activity I will apply for an injunction against S&NPC.

Furthermore I will publish this correspondence as widely as possible and make a point of informing all pub industry stakeholders, politicians and the press, both trade and national, about your company's actions.

If you consider there to be grounds for your company to make a civil case I will be pleased to correspond directly with an employee who has authority to do so via this email address. Any queries your staff may have about any property they have accused me of stealing I will respond to without delay. In this regard you may consider referring your employees to the detailed inventories and lease agreements proving ownership which, at their request, I gave them in meetings over the past three years.

If you want to correspond about my leaving the pub in general, for example you may like the next lessees to have an insight into the pub's interesting history - I will be pleased to share my knowledge with any future lessee, you may also do so via email to this address as I now am of no fixed abode, having been evicted.

Further to these matters if your company believes I owe it any money please send an up to date, full and final, statement of all accounts outstanding. Please be sure to include all new and invented claims by 15 October for the interest of the Official Receiver in my case who I will be pleased to pass your correspondence on to by return.

Sincerely, I look forward to your confirmation of action

Mark Dodds

Peter

You may think this is the result of paranoia but if you think about the MA website rationally; having had a fairly OK stab at a working site before and with the experience of the Publican forum being a day out all the time because it was totally moderated (badly moderated) MA have had plenty of opportunity to get it right and what they've come up with is shite. I think the forum has been tucked up like that deliberately to stifle open responsive free flowing debate - the pubcos absolutely hate it and do have a lot of influence over what happens in publications - and it's worked because barely anyone posts anymore.

Thanks for offering your encouragement - it's all very interesting, not sure where it will end up but I'm going to keep pushing hard everywhere I can to get the PPP going.

As you are planning to get into the pub trade - you will find it hard to find out anything concrete about these pub companies Peter, believe me, they make it deliberately so - they don't want people knowing what they get up to. Seriously, they are secretive because so much of what they do is dubious and over the edges of any form of contemporary acceptable business practice. They are in it for cash only and nothing else, The pubcos that are part of family brewers are exactly the same (until proven otherwise) except the Families believe they have a god given right to shaft tenants so they can keep their thousand acre estates and striped blazers in good nick. With the other pubco's it's just employees earning bonuses and running on hamster wheels trying to make shareholder value stack up - and they're all being dragged down by their own unsustainable business behaviour they are in denial about. It's all very schizophrenic.

I strenuously recommend that you avoid any form of tied agreement whatsoever. Wellington are by default not such a bad pubco because it's without tie. I've seen several Wellington sites in pretty good locations - far better than the Sun and Doves - and their rents have been a lot less than mine but I cannot comment on their ethics or anything else. I'd rather have a fot lease with them than a tied lease with anyone ever.

If you's like to talk anything through sometime - do give me a call. I can probably put you in touch with people who can help with pretty much any aspect of pubs whatever comes up.

Be careful out there!

Best

URBAN 75

http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/sun-and-doves-pub-owner-evicted-after-by-brewery-after-huge-rent-rises.281670/page-2

innit said: ↑

I'm really sorry to hear this, Mark. I used to work for you, a long time ago, and although I didn't drink there any more I remember what a special place it was.

I noticed the pub had closed but assumed it was by choice. I am very sad, and angry. Hope you and your family and Nicola and everyone working there are ok.

Thanks Innit. Maybe we should meet up sometime for a catch-up.

The pub industry is dominated by mediocrity at every level save that of the occasional independent minded pub that's run by people whose outlook is to provide something to other people they don't get as customers themselves and so infuse everything they do with their own character and outlook. That sort of thing is what makes some pubs really special...the problem with the majority of pubs is they are owned by pubco's - some of the comments above touch on the complexities of the set up - and pubco's want a lot of money for doing nothing. Someone above asked something like 'who puts their money into this kind of thing' WELL it's the lessees who put the money in. New lessees take on a pub and invest their own money - and everything else like life and soul - into the property to make it their own, so to speak (oh how wrong they are!), this injection of cash and commitment makes the business busy and everyone seems happy, the tenants are working their butt off to keep it vibrant and busy, too busy to realise they're not making enough money to ever repay the £150K investment they put in, let alone provide a decent standard of living - they are thinking: 'besides none of that matters, we're so busy working all the time we don't need money, really, and we're bound to get a chance to work it out down the line', and the pubco's employee in charge of site no 114233 is thinking: 'hmmmm next rent review coming, big increase for pubco, big bonus for me and those fuckers will have to sweat to make my pay packet what I want it to be'.

The rent review comes the tenants get shafted, whatever profits they were making are converted into rent payments, the pubco gets richer the pub gets poorer, the pub needs redecoration; it doesn't get it because there's not enough money around, the owners/publicans/lessees/tenants begin to flag because they can't keep up the furious work rate they set themselves when they started out, business begins to tail off as newer places take away the odd customer here and there, the staff have to work harder to keep people coming in, the people keep drifting away as the pub becomes ever slightly less attractive and slightly more scuffed around the edges, they have to cut back on staff because there's not enough income coming in - and so service becomes patchier than it should be and more customers get a poor experience and stop coming so often - ans so it goes on, a spiral of decline, standards eroding, customers leaving, owners becoming demoralised, rent going up, beer prices going up. And so on until the business fades away and eventually fails.

That's about the sum of it really. The pub fails and another lessee comes along thinking they can do it better. I lasted sixteen years of this pernicious reality at The Sun and Doves. Most new tied lessees are out of their pub within three years now... That's why the pubco's are doing deals with chains - they're more likely to pay the rent for longer. It's called Covenant. It's ALL ABOUT MONEY and NOTHING ELSE.

Vergreedy Verstupid Vapid pubco's but it all works on that law of averages. The cash injection by other people into their estate, the work put into their estate - by other people - all done with no workforce to employ and no legal responsibility for the properties - everything is done by thousands of lessees.

Here are some lies published on Scottish & Newcastle Pub Company's website:

"WITH S&NPC YOU'RE IN GOOD COMPANY

If you have ever wanted to run your own pub, Scottish & Newcastle Pub Company could be your perfect pub partner.

For over 200 years we have been creating great British pubs and we never forget a great pub starts with a great operator.

With S&NPC you run your pub your way but you also have the backing of one of the world’s largest brewing operations who can supply the brands, the training and everything else you need to achieve your ambitions in the pub industry.

Whether your ideal pub is cosy country inn, lively community local or chic city centre bar our extensive estate offers a huge variety of pubs in attractive locations across the UK.

Just take a look at our interactive map to see our current list of available pubs and if you want to make your pub dream a reality email us or call FREEPHONE 0500 94 95 96 - we’re waiting to hear from you!"

Our mission is to offer pub customers the very best pub experience in their area. If you share this vision you can start your application today.

S&N’s leased pub operation was renamed Scottish & Newcastle Pub Company (S&NPC) (following being bought by Heineken) and whilst our name may have changed our commitment to restoring British pubs to their rightful place at the heart of their communities remains the same.

OUR SUPPORT
We pride ourselves on offering British pub goers the best possible pub experience and we achieve this through a continuous programme of investment in both our pubs and the people who run them.

OUR LESSEES
We pride ourselves on offering British pub goers the best possible pub experience and we achieve this through a continuous programme of investment in both our pubs and the people who run them.

OUR PROMISE
Behind every successful pub is a successful operator but not all our lessees have years of experience behind the bar. We welcome applications regardless of previous experience or qualifications; all you need is the drive and commitment to succeed.

OUR FUTURE
The modern pub has to adapt to meet changing customer expectations and Bar Boosters, S&NPC’s exclusive range of ‘set up and go’ alternative income opportunities, is designed to do just that.

Whatever your working background, we will offer you all the training and support you need to run a successful pub. This begins with our four day Innside Knowledge training course and includes our Innside Track Business Support program designed to make stocktaking and accountancy accessible to everyone.

Go ON CALL THEM!

FOUND THIS HERE: http://currencytradingexchangeguide.com/107584/john-h-sperry-2/

Southwark News Community Pυrсһаѕе

Image bу Tһе Sun аחԁ Doves
Dеаr Pub іѕ tһе Hub

Mу pub, Tһе Sun аחԁ Doves, іѕ іח south east London іח tһе middle οf ѕοmе οf tһе mοѕt socially аחԁ economically deprived wards іח tһе UK. I һаνе owned a tied lease οח tһе pub ѕіחсе 1995.

Wе һаνе always worked hard tο mаkе sure tһе pub һаѕ active community presence аחԁ involvement іח many community activities ѕіחсе day one. It һаѕ bееח ԁеѕсrіbеԁ аѕ a ‘gastro pub’ аחԁ аח ‘alternative art space’, ‘a pioneering business’ аחԁ ‘fiercely independent’. Wе describe ourselves аѕ ‘tһе Contemporary Local’.

Mу long practical experience οf tһе beer tie аחԁ understanding tһе pernicious abuse οf іt bу pub companies led mе tο being one οf tһе founders οf tһе Fаіr Pint Campaign.

Tһіѕ іѕ a busy pub bυt חеіtһеr I חοr mу business partenr wһο runs іt wіtһ mе һаνе еνеr mаԁе more tһаח a modest living, wе һаνе חο assets οtһеr tһаח tһе lease, חο pensions аחԁ ѕο οח. Wе аrе a ɡrеаt example οf everything tһаt іѕ wrοחɡ wіtһ tһе tied pub regime іח tһе UK. Being іח business here іѕ rewarding spiritually, morally аחԁ іח terms οf deep experience bυt financially іt іѕ a disaster. Unable tο borrow money tο improve tһе premises, perennially keeping trading јυѕt through working out οf cash flow аחԁ creative ducking аחԁ diving іѕ חο way tο rυח a business. If wе wеrе аbƖе tο bυу ουr stock outside tһе tie іt wουƖԁ һаνе bееח a very different experience – wе wουƖԁ һаνе mаԁе a profit еνеrу year, wουƖԁ һаνе invested more іח tһе business tһаח wе һаνе bееח аbƖе tο, wһісһ wουƖԁ mean tһаt now tһе business wουƖԁ һаνе bе even busier аחԁ wе wουƖԁ bе mаkіחɡ a decent living.

I һаνе bееח pushing RBS аחԁ Scottish & Newcastle Pub Company tο sell tһе freehold. S&NPC аrе very reluctant tο even discuss tһіѕ.

I һаνе bееח asking tһе local community tο consider buying tһеіr local:

www.flickr.com/photos/thesunanddoves/4407935737/

www.flickr.com/photos/thesunanddoves/4437179086/

Tһе іԁеа seems tο һаνе pricked a nerve іח tһе local community аѕ well аѕ wіtһ tһе head office οf S&NPC wһο don’t Ɩіkе tһе іԁеа one bit.

I аm still working οח a business рƖаח аחԁ οח һοw tο mаkе such structure work аחԁ wουƖԁ bе very interested tο see іf tһеrе іѕ ѕοmе work wе сουƖԁ ԁο wіtһ Pub іѕ tһе Hub οח tһіѕ?

I look foward tο hearing frοm уου.

Wіtһ best wishes

Mаrk

J Mаrk Dodds

Urban 75 again:

The bloke who owns Grand Union was on the Dragons Den recently boasting about how he now makes loads of dosh without actually doing very much at all.

People like that don't like work really, they operate on laws of averages and by throwing lots of cash around at a business idea. It's a pubco model within a pubco model. You have X number of outlets generating Y amount of income together with costs overall averaging Z. As long as Y remains at A over Z remaining at B a healthy profit will out, no matter how many outlets you have and it all looks great from shareholders and the Board's short sighted point of view because the company will be valued according to averages and spread of outlets by a brewer wanting to get its product 'out there'. The fact that anything up to 20% of outlets run under such a model are more or less dead ducks in brackish water is irrelevant, the whole remains buoyant as long as some of them are pumping cash into the pond.

If you look at the performance of GU's estate in detail they're no great shakes as separate units but all together they work. Their Camberwell branch is flat and underperforming mainly because it's the wrong location for their market - this is why I have a hunch the Sun and Doves will go to them, I reckon GU would do a storm on Coldharbour Lane - almost as much as they do on Acre Lane in Brixton where I've heard they've done £90K some weeks. I ASSURE you £90K is a phenomena that pumps cash through their whole chain operation, making up for any lacklustre performance there is at any of their other outlets where locations have been chosen badly.

From Urban 75...

http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/sun-and-doves-pub-owner-evicted-after-by-brewery-after-huge-rent-rises.281670/page-2

Grand Union has been created to build up and sell off at a great profit before the chickens come home to roost. It's a common business model - been done many times; invent a brand, stuff it with its own unique feel, style, ambience, products and pzazz then expand rapidly to ten - twenty or more units and sell off to the highest bidder - typically one of the big pubcos - or brewers with pubco trading arms - wanting to extend their market dominance into areas where they're under represented. Makes the principals of the small chain into millionaires in a matter of years while they and the bloated pubco/brewers gloat about 'fabulous shareholder value and it's win win for everyone' (except the staff and the punters of course). In a matter of months, sliding into a couple or three years, the chain's product offering and individuality is absorbed into the monolith, becomes devoid of any of the vacuous character or apparent 'independence' it ever had to begin with and is completely forgotten about.

That's the wonder of unfettered capitalism.

A BIG PILE OF SHITE.

Dear Mark,

WHAT YOU ACHIEVED

Cycling home a different way yesterday for once I was horrified to see that the pub had gone.

I looked up the history to find out what could have happened.

I think you did a really terrific job. Although I was never a regular enough visitor I felt completely confident - I could rely on taking my studio guests there.
– in fact an American printer friend from Paris recently was full of praise.

I think you particularly deserve praise for what clearly against the odds you achieved. It was relaxed, interesting and comfortable.

I’ve had many important and not so important meetings there, learned good news and bad and celebrated in the early days our studio’s Christmas party.

It will be very much missed by me.

My very best wishes and warm regards Mark, and good luck with whatever you set out to do next.

Christopher

Dear Christopher

Many thanks for taking the time to get in touch. It's very much appreciated.

The whole experience of learning the reality of the practices of UK pubco's and their systematic abuse of the beer tie has been unpleasant and gruelling in the extreme and has caused much personal loss. But during the process of learning in sixteen years of tenure at The Sun and Doves I networked with other tied lessees of similarly 'successful' busy pubs and together we set up the Fair Pint Campaign which has lobbied government to outlaw the tie with extraordinary success and now the future of the tie is in doubt and the pubco's, whose financial success is predicated upon the financial ruin of the lessees who run their estates, will soon find themselves with no place to go and a cancer will have been cut out of the pub industry.

And there were many, many exciting and uplifting experiences around running a pub among such a marvellous community as ours in Camberwell! If I can make something that supports me financially out of the experience, it will have all been worthwhile.

Unintentionally a bit of a speech.

Hope you are well Christopher

Best and thanks again

Mark

PUBS ARE CLOSING EVERYWHERE
Britain is littered with boarded up pubs; and everywhere thousands of run down, dead and dying boozers are just waiting for the inevitable FOR SALE signs to go up: 'suitable for alternative use, subject to planning'.

This is a tragedy of historically unprecedented proportions... that PPP is going to change.

If you CARE about pubs, and want to help save Britain's heritage and tradition, then soon you will have the chance to buy into your nation's pubs with

The People's Pub Partnership;
the John Lewis of Pub Companies

Sign up to our newsletter via the link on the left and we'll send you updates on PPP's progress so you know what's going on with our popular uprising. We promise your details will never be released to anyone else... Thanks

'LIKE' PPP on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/ThePeoplesPubPartnership
Follow PPP on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/PeoplesPubPtshp

from: Mark Dodds. No Fixed Abode

Representatives of Scottish & Newcastle Pub Company

Re: Mark Dodds / The Sun and Doves Public House,

Camberwell, London SE5. Outlet 116144

Since 23 September representatives of your company have been attempting to deceive the police by making false allegations regarding the circumstances of my leaving the above premises.

Their repeated false statements include telling the police that I committed criminal damage and stole property belonging to your company as I left the building while complying with the terms of your company's eviction notice. This is a serious misrepresentation of facts and must immediately cease being repeated.

Further to this your company's actions are a serious misuse of public resources. There very clearly are no legitimate grounds for your company's employees to be vexatiously wasting police time. You must immediately inform your staff to cease and desist from making such falsehoods, clearly aimed at causing vicarious intimidation by attempting to force third parties into harassing me, in the place of your company taking civil action to attempt to recover by deceit goods which it does not own.

To be clear: If your company continues to make false allegations and insinuations to the police regarding my supposedly criminal activity I will apply for an injunction against S&NPC. Furthermore I will publish this correspondence as widely as possible and make a point of informing all pub industry stakeholders, politicians and the press, both trade and national, about your company's blatantly dishonest actions.

If your company considers there to be grounds to make a civil case against me I will be pleased to correspond directly with a member of staff via this email address. I am happy to answer any queries they may have about ownership of any property I have been accused of stealing. In this regard I refer your staff to the inventories and lease agreements proving ownership that I have given them, at their request, in meetings over the past three years.

If you need to correspond about my leaving the pub in general (You may like the next lessees to have an insight into the pub's long past - I know a lot about its history and provenance and will be pleased to meet to pass this on) – in accordance with your company's explicit wishes as described in the eviction order – you may do so via email to this address as I now am of no fixed abode, having been evicted.

Sincerely, I look forward to your confirmation of positive action in response to this note by return

People's Pub Partnership holding page text:

Pubs are closing everywhere. Britain is littered with boarded up pubs and thousands of run down, dead and dying boozers everywhere are just waiting for the inevitable FOR SALE signs to go up: 'suitable for alternative use, subject to planning'.

This is undoubtedly a tragedy of unprecedented national proportions...

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