Hamish Champ: The London Effect
A rather short statement from Capital Pub Company (CPC) last week described the group's trading in its London heartland as "resilient".
It is an indication of our times that such a relatively positive comment managed to do diddly squat to CPC's shares, which remained rigid at 81p.
CPC isn't the first to make capital from the capital. As it were. The company is obviously benefiting from the 'London Effect', much as Mitchells & Butlers and other London-centric operators have.
I can see CPC's point. Wandering around the West End last Friday night one could have been forgiven for asking oneself the question "Recession? Wot recession?"
Pubs in the centre of London were heaving. Restaurants were just the same. Packed.
The uncharacteristically warm weather appeared to have had the same effect on the area's pubs that a rare rainstorm has on a desert; life had burst forth. So much so that it was nigh on impossible to get served in many boozers, such was the crush.
The streets within the immediate vicinity of these same pubs were similarly rammed with revellers relaxing in the warm evening air, prompting me to scan the horizon for Westminster Council licensing officers, bustling along in their fluorescent jackets determined to crack down on people's enjoyment.
If I'd been a patient man I could have waited in a six-deep-at-the-bar scrum in several pubs. But I'm not especially patient. Instead I dragged a friend to a nice little boozer I know down a side street that, while popular, wasn't as uncomfortably busy as others we'd tried. Solace, of sorts.
But - and I've said this before - I realise that living and working in the 'Smoke' can give one a somewhat unrealistic view of the world, if one isn't careful.
We all know that packed pubs in the Soho and Covent Garden areas of London don't paint a true picture of the overall licensed sector.
The capital is a tourist magnet, plus the economy works on a different level than much of the rest of the UK.
And let's also not forget that within the capital itself there are quite a few areas where pubs see little customer activity from opening time to closing.
Perhaps part of the reason, as a former licensee thus commented to me recently, is that people's social habits are changing.
Indeed, changing social trends. And the credit crunch, money worries, belt-tightening, smoking ban, et al, presumably…
