Unfortunately Stephen I’m not in the least bit pessimistic. It’s just a straightforward delivery of reality. I know about these things because I have been campaigning about the scandal of the British pub sector, hard, for almost a decade and before that I was being shafted by a pub company — a shafting which led to my going down with almost half a million worth of debts happily, mostly to the pubco who own the Sun of Camberwell. And the Tiger.
You are right about The Prince of Wales at Myatt’s Fields and its potential. But that potential will not be realised. It’s always been an interesting possibility and if it had been available I would have seriously considered taking it on — so I found out about it. It is not available other than nominally. The rent is ridiculous for a lock up. And to make sure that it will never work the new developer landlord has slapped a beer tie on the lease as well. If anyone takes it on they will go out of business within months.
That pub, unless its current tenure changes radically, will never be a pub again. Not pessimism. Fact.
And the same for Hoopers. And the former Enterprise, latterly a Brazilian restaurant, on Coldharbour Lane, the Green Man, the Crown, the Warrior the Angel all of them also on Coldharbour Lane up to Brixton — any one of them would be viable and very successful now if properly run and without tie.
I’ve accurately predicted most of what’s happened to all of Camberwell’s pubs for well over a decade. I’ve not mentioned even a tenth of what I know in public because when I have made my predictions based on being well informed and understanding the processes of the pub sector from being in the business, people have accused me of commenting negatively because of personal ‘sour grapes’, because I have been ‘scared of competition’ and all manner of other perverse accusations of nefarious ulterior motivation which they have just imagined and so I’ve mostly kept out of it and left them to think they know better than someone who’s in it up to their neck.
People have short memories, know very little about what is happening around them and even less about what happens behind the scenes in the pub sector.
Incidentally on Weds this week the Govt announced that it will legislate against the Tie. And THAT event in Parliament this week was solely, only, exclusively down to ME starting the Fair Pint Campaign by nagging other local publicans to get together and lobby government about the beer tie back in 2007.
And that wouldn’t have happened if Nicky Francey, who agreed to run the Sun and Doves while I went off the rails to fight our rent review and network with other publicans, had not allowed me the time and energy to do all of that back then. And now this week the pub sector wouldn’t even had a meeting in Parliament let alone one which introduced the start real legislation coming in against the devastation that pubco’s have wrought on British society.
That's the last I'll post on pubs on Camberwell online.
That's the last I'll post on pubs on Camberwell online.
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