Dixon: the fire still burns in pub champion's belly

He's had his ups and downs, but through it all Phil Dixon has spoken up, in inimitable style, for pubs and the people who run them. Phil Mellows catches up with one of the trade's great mavericks.

Career is not a word Phil Dixon likes to use about himself. But you could use it to describe his

conversation. It careers along, twisting and turning, darting off at tangents, swerving close to the edge. It's entertaining, all right. And it's not without a sense of danger.

His working life has been a bit like that too. Careering without it being a career, with abrupt turns of fortune and changes of course.

There is, though, for all the wildness, a consistent theme humming away in the background. Through it all, or at least the past 30 years or so, Dixon has remained committed to the pub industry, and, more than that, to the interests of the people who run pubs.

Trade protection, as it used to be called, was a job for gnarled veterans when Dixon joined it as the National Union of Licensed Victuallers' youngest official at the age of 25. He soon overcame that handicap, though, and by the 1980s was being courted by those on the other side of the negotiating table.

"I had a lot of invitations to join major companies," he reveals. "But I made a lifestyle choice, as many licensees do when they take a pub — I've never used the word 'career'."

Those brewers must have been impressed by a certain knack, a certain skillset, as he wouldn't say, that has stood Dixon in good stead in the licensed trade.

"I like to think I can engage with the receptionist and then go upstairs and talk EBITDA in the boardroom. Licensees had trained negotiators facing them on the other side of the table and with a degree in political science behind me I had the intellect to represent them on equal terms.

"But if I have one gift, it's that I can use humour to disarm opponents. Like the time I used a chocolate bar to demonstrate the division of fruit machine income. It must have worked. Fruit machine income is no longer rentalised."

Job satisfaction​

Dixon obtained his job satisfaction from such victories and the gratitude of the licensees he represented.

But it hasn't quite been one long success story. Organised trade protection pretty much collapsed following the 1989 Beer Orders, and Dixon's attempts to rebuild a unified national trade body failed.

At that point, as well as the corporate lure, there was the temptation of a completely different vocation. Dixon's part-time football commentaries for local radio had evolved into his own DJ show, and he even tried stand-up comedy. "I was better than Lembit Opik and the commentating was fun, but it was never going to be a full-time job."

Instead, he went to the BII (British Institute of Innkeeping) to help it recruit the new breed of tenants and lessees, taking membership of the professional body to record levels.

That didn't last either, as he fell out with the chief executive.

"I couldn't work with Mary Curnock Cook. I can't say 'strategic' every third word, I just sort pubs. So I resigned. It was a strategic decision, I suppose. We still send each other birthday cards."

He jokes about it, of course. He's Phil Dixon. But it was clearly a hairy time, and he's keen to name-check two figures who helped him through — Ian King of his first employer, the National Union of Students, and Vital PR boss Jeremy Eaton.

"They saved my life," he says.

As an independent consultant he continues to work closely with Eaton — and he has the BII on his client list. "I am the BII Helpline".

"Working for Neil Roberston is a demanding challenge — and a very rewarding experience. I never envisaged working with someone so much younger from whom you could learn so much."

PIRRS​

Perhaps the project most closely associated with Dixon in his new association with the BII is the PIRRS rent review scheme under which he brings landlords and tenants together to resolve disputes.

PIRRS has virtually eliminated bullying in the industry, he says. "It gets both parties to sit around the table and by offering a low-cost resolution, by removing the threat of an arbitration fee, it stops the bullies. Companies can't say any more to a licensee who disputes the rent, 'we'll take you to arbitration — it'll cost you £20,000'."

It's one of the good things Dixon sees happening, along with the codes of practice being introduced by

pubcos, the Punch Roadshows, on which he delivers advice to licensees, Enterprise Inns' WILMA (Winning in a Local Market Area) training programme — "it's mind-blowing" and Marston's "innovative" new lease agreements.

But there's no complacency.

Dixon's sense of justice, his support for the rights of the licensee, are undiminished.

"To this day I'm appalled by pubco recruitment policies," he says. "I have found myself in the position of defending the indefensible — licensees who have no retail skills whatsoever. It's not their fault. Who interviewed them for that pub?

"Short-term solutions inevitably cause mayhem. And when a pub changes tenant twice a year three years running it shows pubcos are far too optimistic in the terms they set. The beer market's down. You're accused of negativity when you say that, but it's reality.

"One word I find offensive in this industry is 'churn'. It represents destroyed lives and shattered dreams. There ought to be a simulated public garrotting of the BDM who closes down the most pubs in a year.

"People take pubs for emotional reasons. It's wrong for that emotion to be exploited.

"The good news is that proper business plans are now being requested. But then you have lease assignments. Lease assignments are a great way to dump costs from a company's EBITDA, but the model is doomed to failure because a lessee will sell to the person who offers the most money. Is that person the most suitable? No.

"Another thing is pub leases advertised at £20,000 rent where it says it's had lots of interest, and the next day it's £15,000. You see that all the time.

"And there are a ridiculous number of low-turnover pubs on full repairing leases. Pubcos will say they've got to attract entrepreneurs, but Domino's and McDonald's will get them. That's why traditional tenancies are coming back."

Long-term issue​

There's a longer term issue, too, that Dixon believes the industry has to deal with.

"We have a declining wet-led market. The question is, how do we diversify the retail offer and up standards at the same time?

"There's an opportunity there for the BII to make the pub industry a fairer and more professional place. To attract people to run pubs we have to address security, longevity and the right remuneration for what are, after all, anti-social hours.

"For myself, I'm keen to negotiate and help bring parties together.

"One personal challenge I have is that when I came into the trade licensees took pride in their companies, whether it was Whitbread, Bass or Marston's.

"It would be nice to think that you could have a tenant who's proud to be Punch. That will be a day worth waiting for."

My kind of pub​

"Any Bathams Brewery pub. I could name you all 11 of them but if I had to choose one it'd be the Unicorn at Wollaston, West Midlands — 65% of its wet sales is Bathams Bitter and it attracts real salt-of-the-earth Black Country types. For food I would go for the Anchor Inn at Caunsall, Worcestershire, or if it's a birthday or a treat it would have to be the legendary Fountain Inn at Clent, also in Worcestershire."

Key dates​

• 1978 — As full-time president of Warwick University Students' Union, Phil Dixon becomes a national officer for the NUS

• 1979 — At 25, he joins the National Union of Licensed Victuallers (NULV) as Midlands regional officer

• 1983 — Elected chairman of Coventry North East Labour Party and forms Apex First group to combat the far-left in trades unions

• 1985 — Becomes senior regional officer for NULV. Leaves Coventry and resigns all Labour Party positions

• 1987 — Launches