That’s the warning from the chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Save the Pub Group Greg Mulholland who was speaking during a Westminster Hall debate yesterday about regenerating high streets.
He commended the work of the National Planning Policy Framework which mentions pubs and gives them a value in planning law. However, Mulholland said that under use class orders, a developer can still turn a pub into a supermarket, betting shop or solicitor’s office overnight.
“It is still possible to demolish a free-standing pub overnight, even if the pub is wanted and a small business man or woman wants to carry on running it,” he told the House. “That is a permitted development right, which is nonsensical. Likewise, a pub can be turned into a supermarket, a betting shop or a solicitors’ office, which are very different uses of the premises. Communities may lose a valuable and wanted pub and have a supermarket imposed on them and on local retailers.”
Mulholland asked why the Government “still refuse to amend use class orders or look again at the general permitted development rights to clear up absurd loopholes that are damaging communities and town centres across the country?”
He added: “Unless the DCLG (Department for Communities and Local Government) takes responsibility and changes use class orders and general permitted development rights, the leased pub companies will be able to dispose of such pubs for other use, as they have threatened to do, without giving the community a say in the matter.
“Where such pubs are viable and wanted and where a realistic offer is made for them, they are sold as pubs, so that they can continue to be an important part—indeed, the mainstay—of our high streets and our communities up and down the country.”
Labour MP David Lammy also voiced his support for pubs. He said that people want “a place where they can have a drink,” and commended the work of Mulholland and the Campaign for Real Ale.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Don Foster praised Cambridge City Council’s supplementary planning policy to protect pubs and Mulholland’s work on the Save the Pub Group.
In response to Mulholland, Foster added that the Government is “very alert” to the concerns raised. “I entirely accept the issues he raised about whether we need changes to planning use class orders,” said Foster. “I assure him that the Government are considering that.”