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Friday, October 17, 2014

Councillors approve plans to turn historic pub into flats. Bad Decision.

Story in Dorset Echo 15.10.2014

It is frankly difficult to understand how local councillors can be so ignorant and blinkered to what is happening right on their doorstep. You don't have to live locally to be able to tell the story of this pub as if it were being read from a book - because precisely the same thing is happening to pubs all over the country and it is called the Great British Pubco Scam: Public Houses are simply being asset stripped in plain sight of the British communities by short term private equity driven corporations posing as 'pub companies' who are absolutely nothing of the sort. It isn't complicated, IF these genuinely were 'pub companies' they would be investing in pubs, reinvigorating pubs, making pubs fit for contemporary purpose not flogging them off, or 'divesting' them at the rate of two thousand pubs a year.
Photo Dorset Echo
People stopped going to this pub not because they don't want a local pub but because it was not fit for purpose. The pub was not invested in over a couple of decades and it became chronically run down, dilapidated and unattractive to customers. THAT is why people stopped using it -

It's most likely that a pubco like Punch Taverns, Enterprise Inns or any one of many others owned the pub and leased it to a succession of publicans under a tied lease which extracted all the profit from the premises, leaving the business to fail, again and again until it would be no longer economically viable and it was sold to a private developer.

Whatever - clearly if this pub were refurbished well and stocked good, local and regional ales and produce - and it were well run, suddenly you wouldn't have an eyesore in the village you'd have a vibrant, thriving community hub.

It's a terrible shame that so few people in positions of authority have the vision to support local people who care and campaign for their community amenities and assets that pubs really are.

2 comments:

  1. Well said Mark. This sad state of affairs is unfortunately being replicated nationally.

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    Replies
    1. It's appalling - we must do something structural about it Mark

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