New FLVA president Michelle Dwan, who was appointed at the organisation’s annual conference earlier this month, said the Government should fund the helpline using part of the cash levied from pubcos to pay for the new pubs adjudicator.
She said the helpline would ideally be in place before the pubs code is implemented and could be manned by members of the FLVA management committee, or others in the trade, “as long as it is run by people who have expertise about the pub industry,” she told the PMA.
“It can’t be a call centre where tenants are given other people’s telephone numbers and are told to go here, there and everywhere. It has to be run by people who know everything there is to know about the pub industry and can answer questions and give advice there and then,” she said.
Speaking at the FLVA conference earlier this month, Dwan, who is licensee of the Magnet in Castleford, Yorkshire, warned that pub companies will see the market rent-only option as “diluting their income, so beware”.
“Beware of what will likely be a higher rent, for uncertainty of liquor volume sales,” she said.