High profile campaigner forced to close pub

High profile lessee rights campaigner Inez Ward has been forced to shut her pub after bailiffs cut off the electricity.

Ward, Enterprise licensee at Mavericks in Newquay, Cornwall, closed the pub on Friday after failing to pay an £11,500 electricity bill.

Ward runs the Justice for Licensees and the Save the Great British Pub campaign groups, which has over 250,000 members on Facebook.

She was also the brains behind the Pubco Protest march outside the headquarters of Punch and Enterprise in January.

"I can't blame the electricity company," she said. "It is a kick in the teeth but I have no money to pay the bill. The majority of the money I take goes on paying the rent. If I could have hung on for another four weeks until the season starts here I might have been OK."

She also owes Enterprise almost £11,000 in costs after a failed bid to take out an interim injunction against the pubco in May last year (Enterprise host fails in injunction bid​) and around £6,000 in back rent. Ward, who suffers from angina, has twice won forfeiture hearings against the pubco to get extra time in paying off rent arrears.

"We have no hot water or heating either because of the electricity being cut off but we have no choice but to stay. This is our home.

"If I was a mass murderer in prison I would be living in better conditions."

However, Ward refused to be downbeat. "There is no way the trade has heard the last of me. Even if I have to leave my pub, I will carry on campaigning. Imagine what I could achieve with 24 hours a day to devote to the campaign for a fair deal for tenants."

A recent campaign to raise money to help Ward has so far raised £664, despite early pledges of closer to £3,000.

Meanwhile, Lib Dem MP Greg Mulholland's All Party Parliamentary Save the Great British Pub group has invited Ward to speak at its meeting next Tuesday.