The Future of the Great British Pub
The British pub sector is in crisis, with a business model that is not working. Pubs are closing, being converted and demolished at an alarming rate. The greatest worry is that this trend is accelerating. If the pub, the icon of Englishness, is to be preserved, initiatives must support their recovery and ongoing resilience.
Mark Dodds, former London landlord of award-winning pub the Sun and Doves fondly recalls clients bringing in bags of veggies from their allotment, rallying around to make charity events a success and creating original artwork for its walls. A pub that services its local community attracts this type of commitment, the key principle that spurred him to form the Fair Pint Campaign which led to the Pubs Code coming to play in 2016.
Ross Ellis from Horncastle Ales, a microbrewery in Lincolnshire explains “I had a call from the landlord of a pub we supply in a bit of a flap as he’d run out of ale. He said as you’re coming over to play darts tonight, could you bring over a couple of barrels as well. It’s what you do, you support each other.”
Yet, existing tied pub business models do not recognise the community that is wrapped around the pub and the labour of all the different players who work towards making it successful. For too long, the corporatisation of many pubs has made them into cash cows designed to harvest as much profit as possible turning the pub into a transactional outlet where you eat, drink, leave, repeat.
Dr Victoria Ellis-Vowles from the University of Lincoln has teamed up with Mark Dodds, founder of People’s Pub Partnership, an initiative to bring about sustainable solutions to the pub industry. On Friday 30th June, industry professionals including Paul Crossman, the Chair of Campaign for Pubs, and academics came together to design a new pub business model that supports and promotes pub sustainability.
Greg Mulholland, the former Liberal Democrat MP representing Leeds Northeast and co-founder of the Campaign for Pubs said “we’ve seen far too many pubs lost up and down the country, as indebted faceless pubcos and uncaring property speculators close and redevelop pubs for self-interest at the expense of local communities. It’s great to see some communities buying up pubs, but we need a new vehicle to save pubs collectively, on behalf of communities up and down the country and on behalf of everyone who want to see a better, more sustainable, less corporate future for pubs.
“The People’s Pub Partnership is a very exciting concept and one the Campaign for Pubs supports. We were delighted to attend the excellent conference at Lincoln International Business School and look forward to seeing this conversation taken forward, to make this vision a reality, allowing more communities to save their local pubs”.
As Dr Geeta Lakshmi, Associate Professor in Finance at the University of Lincoln observed, a sustainable future for sectors dominated by corporate giants such as the pub industry must be centred on community action based on sound local cohesion. Chris Cook from University College London explained that by using community centred outcomes to build a network of small profit-making businesses, we return to an ecosystem that supports local supply chains, producers and employers.
Working alongside Emeritus Professor Rory Ridley-Duff, founder of the FairShares Association, efforts are now centred on designing a business model that is able to deliver a profit making pub company that embodies ethical and sustainable outcomes.
Danny Eycott, an award-winning film maker and creator of Micropubs: The New Local and his crew from Squid Shack Studios supported by two University of Lincoln Film Production students, Cody Nichols and Aaron Bruce will soon launch a short documentary of the event which will form part of a feature length documentary exploring the recent challenges and the future of the great British pub.