United by a community - how locals can save a pub

It's mid-June and opening night at Shurlocks Inn. The Berkshire pub is full of local people who have watched three of the four pubs in Shurlock Row village close down over the years. But not this one.

They have refused to let it go the way of the others, and assembled around the bar tonight - looking shattered but delighted after a year-long fight to buy it and refurbish it - are the people who saved the pub. The group includes an airline pilot, a stewardess, a teacher, a bank manager, a graphic designer, a builder, a conference organiser, a scientist and a marketing professional; but after clubbing together and buying shares in the business they're all publicans.

It sounds a little bit too good to be true doesn't it? A little cheesy? Like the plot of a feel-good Sunday-night family drama?

But it is happening and, as more pubs are threatened with closure, communities are putting their foot down and doing something about it.

Community buy-outs of local services including shops, bus services and schools have been quietly going on in rural towns and villages for years. According to The Plunkett Foundation​, a charity that promotes and supports co-operatives and social enterprises in rural communities worldwide, there are more than 200 community-owned shops in the UK.

But community pub buy-outs are something new. Currently, Plunkett estimates there are about 20. Those bought by small groups of locals are not included, so the figure is almost certainly higher, and it's rising: in December villagers invested more than £150,000 and bought the Fisherman's Arms near Coldstream in the Borders; and four friends clubbed together to buy the Buck Inn in Maunby, North Yorkshire, when that was threatened with closure in May.

Buying a pub

There are several ways a community can buy a business. Multiple shareholders such as those at the Shurlock Inn can form a company, or individuals can invest to preserve the business in a trust for the benefit of the community. Another option is to form a co-operative.

"Pubs are really interesting to us as they are an essential point of rural life," says Plunkett Foundation information and communication manager Mike Perry.

"People are seeing the economic downturn as an opportunity to take control of some of the issues that have been affecting them over the past few years. Our enquiries from people looking to set up community pubs have risen in direct correlation with pub closures. We are seeing more communities consider the wider community ownership model, where members of the community are encouraged to become a shareholder and form a co-operative."

Co-operative ownership of pubs looks set to gain popularity as cherished locals are threatened, but at the moment there is only one pub that has tried and tested the model and found it works.

Julian Ross is the chair of the co-operative that owns the Old Crown pub in Hesket Newmarket, Cumbria. A microbrewery previously belonging to the pub had already been bought by a co-operative of locals set up in 1999. In 2003, when the then-licensee wanted to retire, Ross floated the idea at the microbrewery's AGM and got enough shareholders interested to buy the pub, setting a charge of £1,500 a share. Some people bought several shares, while others clubbed together or went without their holidays for a year to afford them.

Although the co-operative owns the building, it does not run the pub as the co-operative's management committee recruited experienced tenants to do this. The tenants keep all profits, while the co-operative receives a market rent that it ploughs back into the business.

The future of the pub appears secure because, as a co-operative business, the site is only permitted to stop trading as a pub if 75 per cent of members agree - and that is unlikely to happen. Such has been the success of the project that Prince Charles has visited the pub three times as part of his work with Pub is the Hub.

"It took so much hard work to achieve," says Ross, "but I think it's about what it stands for. There's a corporate steam roller flattening everything in its path. Everywhere you go, every town centre is the same, with the same shops, and you don't really know if you're in Loughborough or Leicester. I think that, in a tiny way, people saw us and thought they could do something about it."Struggling

But for every community that secures the future of their local, there is another that fails or is struggling. And the reasons why can be complicated.

For example, the Midmar Inn in the Aberdeenshire village of Midmar has been closed since September 2007 and the freehold owner wants to convert the building to housing. Locals formed the Friends of Midmar Inn Community Company and have been awarded the right to buy the pub under the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003. However, they can only do this should the owner sell - and at the moment it is not for sale.

For now company secretary Margot Kennedy is keeping a close eye on stories of communities that do succeed.

"If it comes on the market, we will have to set about raising funds to buy it," she said. "In order to get grants we will have to embrace the idea of the pub serving multiple functions for the community. But we can do it. We can."