The good, the bad and the rather unattractive

It seems no-one has a good word to say about the big pubcos at the moment, if indeed they ever did.

Inflexible, interfering, bullying, unreliable - just some of the epithets that have been showered on the likes of Punch Taverns and Enterprise Inns in recent months, if not years.

One of my chums is a Punch lessee and believes the success of his pub is in spite of his landlord, not because of it. His attitude may well be typical of many, and I imagine a lot of the criticism levelled at the Big Boys is justified. I have certainly heard enough stories about the way lessees are treated by their area or business development manager which makes me wonder whether the people at the top have an earthly what is going on at ground level across their estate of thousands of sites.

But herein lies the rub. Away from the appreciably painful aspects of running a leased pub - onerous rent reviews, the tie, etc - some good stuff does appear to be going on.

My colleague Claire Dodd wrote a very interesting piece about some companies' efforts to attract more women into the pub trade in the current issue of The Publican​.

Claire cites Greene King's efforts in trying to persuade women - businesswomen - to take on a pub and make it successful, along with Punch's more general provision of extra business support. Laudable stuff.

Those women she spoke to who were interested in giving it a go told Claire they saw themselves as business people first, licensees second.

I know there'll be many a vocal critic of 'the system' ready to warn off the Lovely Girls for all the familiar reasons.

But if applicants - male or female - are bright and ambitious enough surely they'll see through the crap, hammer out a deal and do a good job. That, or walk away altogether…