Calling Time On The Local?

IT IS the driest pub crawl I've ever been on – 10 pubs, and not a single pint in any of them. But with traditional pubs closing their doors on what seems like a daily basis across Bristol, the mystery tour has been organised by local campaigners to highlight the plight of the humble Local.

Peter Bridle, chairman of the Bristol Camra (Campaign for Real Ale) Pubs Group, leads the throng of concerned Camra aficionados on to the bus, with a chirpy "this is the only Camra bus trip in history that doesn't involve a pint of beer".

But as the Evening Post reported last month, 18 community pubs closed in the city in the last year – at the rate of one every three weeks.

Peter fears a "perfect storm" of increased duty on beer, loss-leading competition from supermarket budget booze and a lack of planning protection for established pubs is creating a climate in which landlords have no choice but to hang the towels up for good.

"We did a survey recently of pub landlords in Fishponds," he explains as the bus pulls away from the city centre.

"We found that 90 per cent of landlords in the area felt they were under significant financial pressures and were struggling to keep open.

"Across the city we have seen between 70 and 80 community pubs close for good over the last three years alone.

"We're talking about places that were once the heart of their community – places like the White Hart in Brislington, The Highwayman in Kingswood, the Queen's Head in Willsbridge, the Red Cow in Bedminster – I could go on and on.

"At this rate they will become a thing of the past before anyone knows what's happened."

The bus stops at the first grim port of call for the day – the Gainsborough in Lockleaze.

The pub closed its doors for the last time in March 2010, and it is now boarded up, graffiti has been sprayed on the walls, the front door that welcomed so many since it was built in the 1960s has been bricked-up, and the pub sign is falling down at a jaunty angle, like the opening scene of Fawlty Towers.

You couldn't find a more potent symbol of the demise of community pubs in the city.

Peter believes the single biggest threat to pubs' livelihoods is the burden of beer duty.

"Beer duty was increased by a massive 60 per cent by the last government, and the current coalition has done nothing to retract it.

"This means we have the most debilitating level of taxation on beer sales in the whole of Europe, with the single exception of Ireland.

"In the last year the Government has also introduced the beer duty escalator, which means duty on beer rises by two per cent above the retail prices index every year."

Things are looking slightly more hopeful as we arrive at the second pub on our tour, The Golden Bottle in Lockleaze, which closed its doors in August, but which has recently been sold, and renovation work is clearly already under way on the pub.

But there is no such happy story at our third stop of the morning. The Standard of England in Southmead was once a busy estate pub, with no fewer than four bars.

It closed its doors in May 2010, and has already been converted into a busy Tesco Express store.

Which leads Peter on to the second nail in the coffin of the pubs.

"The second biggest issue publicans face is the competition from the big supermarkets, who are offering budget booze at unrealistically low prices – often charging less than the production costs.

"It's a real problem for publicans, not least because young people in particular now tend to "pre-load", that is, they get drunk on the cheap supermarket booze before they leave the house to go out for the evening.

"That leads to untold levels of anti-social behaviour later in the evening, as well as crippling the pubs' beer sales."

Few people understand this problem quite as well as Glen Dawkins, owner of the Dawkins Ales brewery, based in Timsbury. Glen also owns five pubs in and around Bristol, including the popular Portcullis in Clifton.

"A pint of Tesco Value cider works out at just 39p, while a pint of Tesco Value bitter costs just 22p. The average pint in a pub costs £3 – and at that level the publicans are making very little profit.

"Two thirds of licensees earn just £15,000 a year – for 100 hours of work each week.

"When you take into account the overheads of running a pub – the gas, electricity, duty and the increasing wholesale cost of beer, it's not difficult to see why pubs are disappearing.

"Running costs of pubs went up 10 per cent last year alone."

The next pub on our depressing pub crawl is the Wayfarer in Henbury, which closed its doors in May, and looks set to be demolished in the near future.

Then we head to The Bourne End in Henbury, which also closed in May, and is now boarded up with its windows smashed. The only sign remaining intact on the building is a single red cockerel that once marked it out as a Courage pub.

Ed Lobbett, landlord of the Bank Tavern freehouse in the city centre, believes the big pub companies that tend to own most suburban community pubs also maintain a debilitating stranglehold on them.

"There is a real issue for tied-pubs to try to compete with those of us who have freehouses.

"A tub of ale can cost me between £50 and £70, but exactly the same product will cost £120-150 for licensees who are forced to buy their beer from a brewery.

"Sadly it doesn't damage the big pub companies when a little local pub closes its doors – all it does is increase their property portfolio. All they then do is sell the property on, usually to build flats.

"Traditional suburban community pubs simply tend to be owned by the wrong people – they're not owned by the communities that use them, they're essentially owned by bankers, who couldn't care less what happens to them."

Our next stopping point is The Henbury Inn, or rather the site of The Henbury Inn. For the once bustling 1950s pub has been razed to the ground since it closed in 2006 and replaced by a complex of flats.

It's a prime illustration of Ed Lobbett's point. All that remains as a reminder of the site's past is the hanging pub sign, that stands as a haunting ghost of its former existence.

Things only get worse as we drive around in circles struggling to find our next target – The Mason's in Lawrence Weston.

Once a charming pub – an old extended cottage that was generally held to be the best pub in the area – it closed its doors in May 2010. By August 2010 it had been demolished.

When we finally find the empty site, once again the only thing that remains is the garden wall and the hanging pub sign.

It's stories like this that lead Camra's Peter Bridle to his final "key point" in the demise of the community pub – the lack of planning protection.

"You can turn a pub into almost anything without the need for planning permission these days," Peter says.

"These pubs are important community hubs, and once they're gone from the community they don't tend to come back. They need some level of protection."

Fellow Camra member Steve Comer has an unusual insight into both camps – as he is also a Liberal Democrat city councillor and sits on the council's planning committee as well the licensing committee.

"Pubs have always been very much part of communities in Bristol – think of all the football teams, darts, skittles and crib teams, the local history societies and community charity groups that come out of the friendly Local.

"If those pubs disappear, they take a big swathe of the community with them. So they absolutely do need more protection."

But any increase in planning protection would come too late for our three remaining ports of call, The English Rose in Lawrence Weston, which closed in 2008 and has already been replaced by another complex of flats; the Pen Pole Inn, also in Lawrence Weston, which closed in March 2010 and could soon accommodate nine new houses; and finally the Iron Bridge in Combe Dingle, which has been converted into a children's nursery since the final pint was supped here two years ago.

Camra member Keith Shapland says he knows exactly what the loss of pubs can do to a community.

"I moved to Knowle West 12 years ago, and there were two excellent locals – the Venture Inn and The Friendship," he says. "Both have disappeared in the last couple of years.

"It strikes at the very heart and soul of a community when you remove the local pub. What could be sadder than calling time on the Local for the final time?"