It's a hard life

Running a pub is hard work, but it's even more challenging in a run-down area. Nigel Huddleston meets the licensees at the heart of tough communities

To Claire Tunstall "splitting up a fight is just part of the job". Tunstall is the freeholder of the Colonel Burnaby, one of thousands of unsung heroes who run pubs in run-down areas that provide a vital service to their communities, but remain invisible to industry awards schemes, Sunday newspaper supplements and, frequently it has to be said, the trade press.

The Burnaby is in Radford, a tough working class area of Nottingham, with a mixed white, black and Asian population, characterised by low incomes, relatively high unemployment and higher-than-average crime rates.

Drugs are a major problem here, though probably no worse than in other inner-city

areas across Britain, or even on the other side of the city, but, as the saying goes, mud sticks. Shootings are still infrequent enough to have shock value, but out-score reports of hen's teeth in the local Evening Post with ease.

The housing stock is a mix of Victorian and Edwardian terraces, which have gradually been taken over by student-friendly landlords, and 1960s and 1970s social housing, separated by unwelcoming alleyways and the often-abandoned remains of the factories that once pounded out the area's industrial heartbeat.

Radford's reputation across the city -

comparable to places such as Chapeltown in Leeds, Hulme in Manchester or Brixton in south London - leads drivers passing through to lock their doors from the inside for fear of car-jacking, whether it's likely to happen

or not.

Reuben Marriott, licensee of the Gregory has a different perspective. His pub sits at one corner of one of the main roads that marks the Radford boundary and turns over £150,000 a year. It's an imposing Victorian, red-brick building with two large rooms - a bar with a pool table and a lounge, which has a stage complete with theatrical lighting that probably doesn't see as much use as it ought to.

Good PR job for the area

As chair of the local Pubwatch, Marriott naturally tries to do a good PR job for the area and its pubs.

"It's not a bad area, contrary to public belief. It gets a bad press; why, I don't know. Our crime rate round here is no worse than in town. A lot of it is snobbery, but there are lots of other parts of Nottingham that have bad names. It's just that with some areas it's stuck more."

Tunstall thinks it's "the fear factor". She adds: "It's a mini form of terrorism, at the end of the day. It's about fear rather than anything actually happening."

Marriott argues that Radford has been given up on by politicians who could do something about its problems.

"It's about the only area that's never really had a major facelift," he says. "It's only within the last two years that we've had an upgrade of street lighting."

But Tunstall at the Burnaby argues that money is just an excuse.

"We've had money from the European Parliament to regenerate the area and I certainly haven't heard of money that's been spent like that in other areas. I don't think it is just lack of money, I think it's a lack of people with an ounce of common sense. You could give an idiot £100 and it would be gone in an hour."

Of course, that assessment is intended to be taken with a pinch of salt, but Tunstall highlights how the dynamics of the economy in such locations mean that the normal rules about business development don't always

work the way they should.

"The only people in this area that have got money to spend are the people that aren't working," she says. "I have no idea how people who are on a pension or never had a job in their life manage to keep coming out and keep my pub ticking over seven days a week."

Hub of the community

One of the problems faced by licensees in

areas like this is the pub's primary role as a community hub, a meeting place, led by sales of beer.

Frequently, however, the community the pub serves simply doesn't have the volume of spending power to sustain all the pubs in the local area.

"New people go into them and six months later they're boarded up," Tunstall says. "The Boulevard down the road is closed. Before that it was open for six months, shut for two, open again and shut again. They're all like that around here."

One long-standing local pub, the Queen Mary, faced the ultimate ignominy recently when it was turned into a convenience store.

Fashionable business drivers that might work a treat in other parts of the same city, such as quality food at premium prices, just wouldn't wash in areas like Radford.

As a consequence, pubs have to find ever more ingenious ways of generating revenue. One Radford pub, the Wheatsheaf, has handed over its under-used car park to a hand car-wash operation.

Marriott at the Gregory is hoping to get more use of his lounge area on weekdays. "We're talking with the students' union to see if they'll push some bands our way to rehearse in the room on week-day nights," he says.

But he admits it's difficult to do anything too outlandishly new in locations like his. "The locals are quite passionate about where they drink, so I think as long as you take their feelings into consideration and try not to unbalance their routine, they're fine. What they hate is drastic change. Some people just want to sit at the bar and pass the time of day."

Tony Payne, chief executive of the Federation of Licensed Victuallers' Associations (FLVA), says hosts need to have a realistic

expectation of what it's like to work in run-down areas.

He says: "You've got to realise that a lot of people who haven't got money are the ones who most enjoy the craic of going into a pub and talking to their friends. There's more

companionship than in a town-centre pub, but licensees in these areas tend to set their sights lower. They look at what they can afford and that's all they budget for."

Both Marriott and Tunstall say that flexible opening hours have helped business.

The Gregory is licensed until 3am on

Friday, Saturday and Sunday. "It's a struggle to get them out by three o'clock," says Marriott. "Some of them say we should extend it more, but it would mean higher staffing costs and we just haven't got the desire to do it. We're not struggling for customers."

Redeploying staff costs

The Burnaby used to open at 11am, but

Tunstall has moved that back to 1pm, redeploying the staff costs to stay open until 1am.

On the downside, the smoking ban has the potential to do most harm in wet-led pubs like these in working class areas.

"No smoking will affect a lot of our customers," says Marriott, "because a lot of them love a pint and a cigarette. A lot of them are concerned about it and might not bother coming out. It will be detrimental to pubs like ours."

Payne at the FLVA agrees. "These areas have the biggest concerns with the smoking ban. Licensees have got to try to get people to

understand that they are doing their best and to get them to carry on coming in to meet their friends."

And when the going gets tough, the customers can be your biggest asset, says Payne.

"Normally you'll have a very good bunch of customers who support you," he says. "There may be one or two hard-headed people in the area but most people tend to be very loyal.

"However, I would say anyone going into this sort of area needs to go and see the

customers and make sure they're going to be happy with those kinds of people. But

normally the only difference between them and the person in the suit is the amount of money that's in their wallet."

Tackling antisocial behaviour

While a lot of pubs have to put up with antisocial behaviour, those in inner-city areas are more likely to face issues with drugs, robbery and even protection rackets.

Tony Payne, chief executive of the Federation of Licensed Victuallers' Associations, says: "Armed robberies are t