Ex-Provence pub turns fortunes around in a year
The Crown Inn at Maltby-le-Moor, Alford in Lincolnshire, is living proof there is some good news to emerge from the discredited pubco Provence Group debacle.
The collapse of the pub operator has enabled licensee Nigel Walpole to buy his pub for an affordable price.
Walpole purchased the village inn for just £315,000 last year, a figure way below the £430,000 paid by a property company to Provence in 2004.
The intervening years saw at least three licensees unable to meet the £800-a-week rent promised by head lessee Provence to the new property company owners.
"There's been a lot of broken hearts here over the last few years, but we are now making a decent fist of the place," reports Walpole.
"We've just completed our first year and trade has averaged about £4,000 per week.
"In the busy summer season we were peaking up to £8,000 per week so it's been a good 12 months," he added.
Walpole and wife Janet have got the Crown into the Good Beer Guide and now plan to open their own microbrewery.
