CAMRA offers hope for ban on restrictive covenants

Opponents of restrictive covenants on pubs have a "big opportunity" to push the government to ban the practice this year, according to the Campaign for Real Ale.

The Competition Commission is seeking to ban restrictive covenants on supermarkets - which stops a buyer from using an outlet for the same purpose - following a two-year inquiry into the supermarket industry.

And speaking at a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Save the Pub Group yesterday, Jonathan Mail, CAMRA's head of policy and public affairs, said this could open the door for those fighting the practice in the pub trade.

"There's a big opportunity to push for restrictive covenants to also be banned on pubs," he said.

Earlier Mail said CAMRA was already pursuing this issue on "competition grounds".

"Enterprise Inns recently revealed they place them on 70 per cent of pubs they sell, so it's quite a big problem," he said. Enterprise however says it will ditch restrcitive covenants, in response to the pubco BEC report.

Mail also said council planners were left with a "Hobson's Choice", because they can allow a change of use or its stands there empty because of the restrictive covenant.

"They can be used as revolver to the heads of local authorities," he added.

MP Greg Mulholland, chairman of the Save the Pub group, branded restrictive covenants "an absolute disgrace and a scandal", claiming they were operated by companies that have no interest in the British pub.

He also said it was "scandalous" pubs were being closed that did not need to shut. "It remains perfectly legal to close a successful, profitable pub if their owners want to do that and we must change that," he said.

Mulholland also renewed his call for a new category in planning law to be created to protect pubs. "No pub should be closed permanently without first of all a genuine community consultation or viability test," he said.

Earlier in the meeting, CAMRA's chief executive Mike Benner said the Sustainable Communities Act was "Britain's Best Kept Secret" and a "revolutionary" bit of legislation, which defined pubs as local services. The Act means local people can use it to promote community pubs and the availability of local beers.

Benner revealed that around a third of councils had decided to opt into the Act.

He earlier revealed that of permanently shut pubs, 31 per cent are demolished, 36 per cent are converted to shops or cafes, and 33 per cent are used for alternative use, which was mainly residential.