Is your "Local" pub threatened with closure?

Gerry Brooke looks at future prospects for the traditional English pub.

WITH up to one in eight pubs predicted to call a final last orders in the next few years, campaigners are becoming increasingly concerned.

The ban on smoking, tax hikes, red tape, intense competition from cheap supermarket booze and now the recession are all factors being blamed for the closures.

Beer sales – hit recently by more tax rises – are said to be at their lowest since the Great Depression of the 1930s – a time when millions were penniless and out of work.

With sales almost half what they were 25 years ago, landlords are also having to cope with rising costs in brewing, food and energy.

On top of this, the Chancellor now takes a whopping 30 per cent cut from each pint.

With five pubs – many of them traditional street corner Victorian “locals” – now shutting up shop every week Camra (the Campaign for Real Ale) predicts that up to 6,000 pubs could be lost over the next four years.

And, if nothing is done to help support them, it could very well be many more.

Cheap booze bought elsewhere also means falling customer numbers.

Compared with 90 per cent in the 1970s heyday, only 58 per cent of drinking takes place in a local hostelry today.

Although country pubs are also feeling the pinch, it’s urban pubs that seem to have been the hardest hit.

“Pub closures at this rate are threatening an important hub of our social fabric and community history,” says Rob Hayward, of the British Beer and Pub Association.

“Sliding consumer confidence and spiralling inflation are hitting pubs in two ways.

“Not only are the costs of running a pub increasing, but fewer people through the door means less cash in the till.

“What we need to stop the decline is support from the Government... and the general public”

Despite a large influx of new residents into the Old Market area, for example, many “locals” – pubs that weathered the recessions in the 1980s and 1990s – have now closed their doors.

These include the Printers Devil in Broad Plain, and The Swan in Midland Road.

In other areas, the much-loved Wedlocks, near the City ground at Ashton Gate was, after a fight, demolished in favour of housing.

Losses to Bedminster, which have been heavy, have included The General Elliott and the Enterprise Inn.

And in the St Philip’s area, the Cattle Market Tavern, the Coopers Arms, and the Crown And Anchor have all closed their doors.

Among other pubs lost – not without a fight – have been The Hollybush Inn in Brislington, The Pit Pony and The Waggon And Horses in Easton, the Bristol Tavern in Stokes Croft, the Venture Inn in Knowle West, the Ship Aground in Ashley Down and The Talbot in Knowle.

The only pub now left on the Cumberland Road, alongside The Cut, is the Velindra, by the General Hospital and council flats.

Just recently, pub lovers were dismayed to see the demolition of the Ship And Castle in

Ashton Vale.

To date, more than 40 small, community boozers have been lost – either demolished or given new uses.

And as the year turns, the axe is still hanging over other city pubs – the historic Bell in Redcliffe being just one.

But despite the doom and gloom, many publicans are fighting back and finding new ways to bring back the punters.

The Thunderbolt on the Bath Road in Totterdown, for instance, was once a run-down local called The Turnpike and dying on its feet.

Its saviour has been a new, dynamic landlord and the introduction of live music.

On the other side of Totterdown, on St Luke’s Road, the similarly run-down Cumberland pub (now The Star & Dove) has had new life breathed into it by a complete makeover, and the introduction of good food and community events.

Other pubs that have been “saved” include Bedminster’s Albert Inn, the Hope & Anchor on Jacobs Wells Road, the Robin Hood’s Retreat on the Gloucester Road, the Duke Of York in St Werburgh’s and the Victoria and The Portcullis, both in Clifton.

The historic Rummer in St Nicholas Market, once a very popular Berni brothers pub, was “reinvented” and so saved a couple of years ago after lying empty for a long while.

Out at Bath, on the Lower Bristol Road, the Royal Oak (a Camra pub of the year) saved from demolition and empty for seven years, has risen like a phoenix to become a great community pub.

The landlord there has also opened a brewery.

New pluses on the Bristol list include The Barley Mow in St Philip’s and the “gin palace” in Old Market.

So, it can be done. Things can be turned around. But how?

“An important aspect of running a successful pub is to welcome consumers and cater for their individual needs,” explained a Camra spokesman.

“Even in this economic climate,” he said, “we’ve seen many examples of publicans who are bucking the trend, adopting innovative ways of generating custom through themed nights, beer festivals, etc, and by providing an all-round service to the community.

“Our research shows that 65 per cent of the population views the pub as an integral part of their lives, and this support should give publicans some hope.”

Gastropubs – pubs concentrating on food as well as drink – have been around for a good while now, even if they change the whole character of a place.

Big screens for sport have been another way to bring in the punters.

Village pubs, vulnerable ever since the time when the law got tough on drink-driving, are also closing at an alarming rate.

We see skittle alleys being turned in to dining areas – but is it enough?

“Many villages are facing a future without a pub in the next few years,” said Rob Hayward.

“The closures are threatening our very social fabric.”

Camra claims that more than half the villagers which once had pubs are now “dry” for the first time since the Norman conquest in 1066.

“The rising cost of fuel and the increase in beer duty are further nails in the coffin for the traditional British pub,” said a spokesman.

“The country pub trade, for many, is now on its knees.”

Mark Steeds, who owns the Beaufort Arms, a freehouse in the Cotswold village of Hawkesbury Upton, told Bristol Times: “Within a 10-mile radius of here the villages of Alderley, Badminton, Horton, Ingelstone Common, Littleton Drew, Nettleton, Tresham and Wortley are all without pubs.

“We should value our community ‘locals’ – where’s the companionship in supermarkets, and superpubs are unwieldy and intimidating.”

Could our “locals”, he suggests, be protected by being given some kind of amenity status?

Sam Kendon, a member of the Bristol Pubs Group, puts the blame for many closures firmly on the backs of the large pub companies.

The “PubCo’s”, he says, own an even greater proportion of the nation’s hostelries than the big breweries did before 1980s legislation broke the cartel.

“The ‘PubCo’s’ don’t make beer,” Sam told Bristol Times.

“Their only aim is to make money, and if that means flogging pubs off for housing, or to the highest bidder, so be it.

At least the big breweries of the past had an interest in keeping pubs going in order to sell their beer.

“For the fate of 90 per cent of these cornerstones of British culture to be in the hands of half a dozen ruthless ‘PubCo’s’ is surely something to be set right before the recession passes.”

Despite the many problems facing publicans today, Bristol’s top food and drink writer Mark Taylor thinks he can see some light at the end of the dark tunnel.

“The pub is a British institution which should be preserved for future generations,” he told Bristol Times.

“The local boozer, whether it’s in the city or the country, is a vital social hub - part of our tradition.

“To survive, pubs need to diversify, whether it’s by making their food more attractive or by increasing the number of events and extra reasons for people to visit – whether it’s a pub quiz, live music or a curry night.

“This doesn’t mean pubs need to become novelties, restaurants or the equivalent of a pub theme park.

“There are ways of retaining that all-important pub atmosphere for drinkers while still broadening the appeal.

“Just look at The Spotted Cow in Bedminster or The Pipe & Slippers in Cheltenham Road – just two examples of pubs that have only survived through the efforts of forward-thinking young landlords.

“They’ve managed to preserve the old pub ambience but also attract the next generation of drinkers, whether it’s with good food or events.”

But Mike Jackson of the campaigning Bristol Pubs Group, is more pessimistic.

“The ability of pubs like the Albert Inn and the Gin Palace to reopen has been because of a niche in the market which allows their speciality offerings to be in demand.

“There are some good new stories, such as The Barley Mow and the Duke Of York, but we fear that, at the moment, the closures are outweighing the reopeners.

“Perhaps the recession may bring back community spirit, so people will go back to

their ‘local’.”