The Agents

Graham Allman

Managing director

GA-Select

It was Margaret Thatcher who famously said, "The lady's not for turning", then Tony Blair followed up with, "I have no reverse gear". But the same can't be said for the present residents of 10 and 11 Downing Street, Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling.

With the about-turn on the capital gains taxation changes announced last week they have proved that New Labour is in total meltdown.

This could now be the opportunity for the industry bodies to get behind the trade and put pressure on the Government to review the draconian smoking laws which have caused massive disruption within the trade.

The ban has also badly affected the values of some pubs, who were reliant on a smoking population, which fell due to lost sales and subsequent net profits - the basic measurement for pub valuations.

Many pubs were forced to close their doors for good but this has not necessarily been a bad thing for the freeholders as alternative use of the sites is often far in excess of their value as pubs; in addition, there's the added advantage of a stronger sector.

The loser is usually the tenant, which is a crying shame for those affected. Maybe the Government should look at some sort of compensation scheme, as they have done when pension funds have been plundered.

In last week's MA, a business agent was reported to be very upbeat about the coming year with values of leaseholds rising due to a shortage of quality freehouses, yet only a few weeks earlier another was quoted as saying "it's a buyers' market" - two extreme views of the same market. Which is right, or are both of them correct in their assumptions? In time, purchasers will be the judge and vendors the jury on the answer to this one.

An experienced guess is that the true outcome will be

one of fair sustainable deals, and with interest rates expected to drop by 1% over the year, along with a rallying of the stock market, confidence should eventually return to business and property values.

On the leasehold front, the journey has begun for pubcos and their customers to realise they are all in the same boat and have a common interest - that is the continuing success of the great British institute of the pub.