All-Party Parliamentary Save the Pub Group chairman Greg Mulholland tabled a Parliamentary motion last week welcoming the second Community Pubs Month.
The initiative encourages pubs to increase trade by organising and marketing events in April. Around 6,000 outlets are expected to take part in celebrations.
Community Pubs Month starts a year’s activity to support CAMRA’s key campaign and “raise the profile of pub-going and increase the number of people using pubs regularly”.
CAMRA plans to organise pub campaigns with different themes in July, October and next January.
“By organising and marketing events in pubs across the country, we hope to see a boost in trade for pubs across the UK, as well as promote the fantastic work pubs do in their local communities,” said Mulholland.
“I look forward to getting down to my local during Community Pubs Month and showing support for local pubs, and I’d encourage all my colleagues in Westminster to do the same.”
Tony Jerome, CAMRA’s head of marketing, added: “Research shows that more people are visiting the pub less often than they did 12 months ago, and many licensees now have to think outside the ‘serving beer and food’ box to draw people back into their pub.
“Community Pubs Month allows the industry to unite under one campaign to help put pub-going back on the map.”
The campaign follows independent research from CAMRA that shows 42% of people are using pubs less than they did a year ago.
CAMRA is using Community Pubs Month to call on the industry, Government, local councils and consumers to back calls to ask councils to include ‘pub protection policies’ in their local plans, urge the Government to build a package of support for community pubs — including the reform of planning law to protect viable pubs from change of use — and deliver legislation to re-balance the relationship between large pubcos and their licensees.
It also wants brewers and pubcos to back CAMRA’s community-pub initiatives throughout the year, as well as asking consumers to celebrate the end of the beer-duty escalator in their local throughout April.
Visit the www.communitypubsmonth.org.uk website for further campaign details.