Pub chiefs positive at The Publican's Industry Leaders Forum

14-Jun-2006 - Last updated on 28-Aug-2011 at 04:34 GMT

Pubs will become much better places for many people to be when smoking is banned - but only if licensees start planning now.That was one of the key...

Pubs will become much better places for many people to be when smoking is banned - but only if licensees start planning now.

That was one of the key messages to emerge from The Publican's second Industry Leaders Forum. The issue was top of the agenda when pub trade captains came together at the event, hosted by The Publican and Coca-Cola Enterprises at Le Manoir in Oxfordshire earlier this week.

And it was a more positive message than last year's forum, when industry chiefs were still unsure of where the smoking issue was headed.

Scott Waddington, chief executive of SA Brain & Co, said: "We are more optimistic after what we've seen taking place in Scotland... the pub in a couple of years will be a better place to be."

But he cautioned that the ban could tip many freetraders over the edge, unless they looked very closely at their business plans. "In Ireland every impact has been pub specific," he said.

Ralph Findlay, chief executive of Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries, said: "If you do nothing you will struggle. If you go about it in the right way you could well benefit."

Paul Wells, managing director of Bedford brewer Charles Wells, agreed: "Start with the trade you are going to defend, then look at what you can spend to bring new people into your pub, the people who are currently the pub rejecters. We're looking very closely at that."

Ted Tuppen, chief executive of Enterprise Inns, predicted that total closures could be as high as 6,000. But he added this was the sort of rationalisation the industry was likely to see in any case over the next few years as other factors contributed to a reconfiguration of the trade.

Michael Turner, chief executive of Fuller, Smith & Turner, said he had changed his opinion on the effect of the smoking ban in England and Wales after monitoring Scotland and Ireland.

"Most pubs will gain business at the end of it all if they do invest," he said.

But there were many aspects of the ban that would cause licensees problems, he continued, not least the requirement to display no-smoking signs.

"We don't want to be told what signage to have if we think it is completely unnecessary. To be told that you can't smoke is just irritating."

Smoking

One of the early lessons about the smoking ban that Punch is learning from Scotland is the need to put more AWP machines in outside areas to help preserve their income.

Phil Pegler, director of lettings and conversions at Punch, told the forum: "We did a lot of preparation for the ban with pubs, so licensees have seen very little decline in volume. But we have seen a decline in AWP machines, of around seven to eight per cent.

"There's definitely an opportunity there to put more machines outside."

The industry's image

The trade's image has come a long way, but more work needs to be done, industry chiefs agreed.

Campaigns against pubs by certain elements of the press, notably the Daily Mail, had been damaging, agreed the pubco bosses.

But responding to a national newspaper that had "declared war on the industry" was a non-starter. Instead, now was the time to accentuate the positives - through vehicles such as The Publican's own Proud of Pubs campaign.

"We dug ourselves an enormous hole and for a time there was a sense of denial [over cheap alcohol and teenage drinking]," said Enterprise Inns chief executive Ted Tuppen.

"It was right as an industry to lie low when the Daily Mail attacked us because whatever we said would have been misreported. We shouldn't defend ourselves, rather we should look for positives, such as the new Drinkaware Trust, or how 'green' a pub can be."

Ralph Findlay, chief executive of W&DB, said the reality "was the polar opposite of the perception [of the industry]".

"Take the charity work that pubs do; this is something that doesn't get reported beyond the trade press," he said.

The Publican Industry Leaders' Forum attendees

Jeremy Blood, managing director, S&N Pub Enterprises

Ralph Findlay, chief executive, Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries

Arran Heal, head of marketing on-trade, Coca-Cola Enterprises

Chris Hopkins, managing director, Hydes Brewery

Mark Jones, chief executive, Ultimate Leisure

Mark McQuater, chief executive, Barracuda Group

Ian Payne, chairman, Laurel Pub Company

Phil Pegler, director of lettings & conversions, Punch Taverns

Andy Slee, trading director, Coca-Cola Enterprises