Localism Bill could hit pub entrepreneurs

Small pub companies, brewers and entrepreneurs could find it harder to buy and run pubs under Government plans to give communities greater powers to take them on.

That's the warning from All-Party Parliamentary Save the Pub Group chairman Greg Mulholland, who called for a strengthening of measures in the Localism Bill during its second reading in Parliament.

The Bill would give groups of residents the chance to step in if valued local services, such as pubs, are put on the market.

Mulholland said: "Given the way in which the community right to buy provision is currently worded, there is a danger that other potential operators — small pub companies, individuals, entrepreneurs or small breweries — would find it more difficult to buy and run a pub that represented what the community wanted.

"In many cases, the right to buy is not only unrealistic but undesirable. It would affect only a few pubs, and I think that the Government should look at the drafting again."

Tokenistic​

Mulholland also said the measure would be "tokenistic" if the "loophole" isn't closed that lets pubs be turned into supermarkets, banks or betting shops without planning consent.

Conservative MP Jesse Norman, who represents Hereford and South Herefordshire, agreed - citing the Gamecock pub in South Wye being sold to Tesco "in the face of local objections and without consultation".

Mulholland backed the plan for a moratorium on the transfer of assets of community value to allow a community body to bid.

But he said it should be triggered when plans are presented for its change of use or demolition, rather than when it's about to be sold.

Empowerment​

Mulholland added: "A six-month moratorium would give communities a real chance either to seek to raise the finance for a community right to buy if they wished to do so or to try to find small companies as partners.

"That would also benefit the excellent small companies concerned.

"I am delighted to say that small companies have now started to buy pubs, as the big companies, with their discredited models, are struggling. That should be encouraged, but there is a concern that it will not be encouraged under the Bill as currently drafted."

Elsewhere, former Communities Secretary Hazel Blears criticised the lack of help on offer for communities that want to buy local assets such as pubs.

She said: "Not by any stretch of the imagination could this Bill genuinely be said to be about empowerment.

"The Bill does not contain the back-up, support, funding and guidance necessary genuinely to give people the sense that they can take on these services."