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MPs debate Health Committee Report on Alcohol Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:43:00 +0000 Kevin Barron MP, Chairman of the Health Select Committee opened a debate in the Commons on the Committee's recent report on alcohol. Gillian Merron, Minister of State, at the Health Department, responded to the debate. The Select Committee Report Recommendations There is a myth widely propagated by parts of the drinks industry and politicians that a rise in prices would unfairly affect the majority of moderate drinkers. But precisely because they are moderate drinkers a minimum price of for example 40p per unit would have little effect. It would cost a moderate drinker who drinks 6 units per week 11p per week, as we have seen, a woman drinking the recommended maximum of 15 units could buy her weekly total of alcohol for £6. Opponents also claim that heavier drinkers are insensitive to price changes, but as a group their consumption will be most affected by price rises since they drink so much of the alcohol purchased in the country. Minimum pricing would most affect those who drink cheap alcohol, in particular young binge-drinkers and heavy low income drinkers who suffer most from liver disease. It is estimated that a minimum price of 50p per unit would save over 3,000 lives per year, of 40p, 1,100 lives. Minimum pricing would have benefits. Unlike rises in duty minimum pricing would benefit traditional pubs which sell alcohol at more than 40p or 50p per unit; unsurprisingly it is supported by CAMRA. Minimum pricing would also encourage a switch to weaker wines and beers. With a minimum price of 40p per unit, a 10% abv wine would cost a minimum of £2.80p, a 13% abv. wine about £3.60p. However, without an increase in duty minimum pricing will lead to an increase in the profits of supermarkets and the drinks industry Alcohol duty should continue to rise year on year, but unlike in recent years duty increases should predominantly be on stronger alcoholic drinks, notably on spirits. The duty on spirits per litre of pure alcohol was 60% of male average manual weekly earnings in 1947; in 1973 (when VAT was imposed in addition to duty) duty was 16% of earnings; by 1983 it was 11% and by 2002 it had fallen to 5%. The select Committee recommend that the duty on spirits be returned in stages to the same percentage of average earnings as in the 1980s. The duty on industrial white cider should also be increased. Beer under 2.8% can be taxed at a different rate and we recommend that the duty on this category of beer be reduced.  Tonypandy Hotel for Sale, Wales Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:35:00 +0000  Mid Glamorgan Pub for Sale Bush Hotel Clydach Road Tonypandy Mid Glamorgan CF40 Existing: 6030 sq/ft* £ 87,000 + VAT Freehold Bush Hotel For Sale  Calls to End Exemption on Supermarkets Social Responsibility Levy Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:36:00 +0000 Large supermarkets should pay business rates using the same turnover formula as pubs, clubs and hotels and generate an extra £100 million for the public purse, licensing leaders said yesterday, the Scottish Herald reports During the keynote speech at its annual conference, the Scottish Licensed Trade Association (SLTA) also said a radical change to the rating system would close the gap between its members and the large chain supermarkets, which currently are exempt from contributing towards the proposed social responsibility levy on the alcohol trade. Yesterday’s call marks the start of a campaign by the organisation, with Scotland’s main political parties saying they were receptive to discussing the proposals. Small supermarket operators say they too would welcome a more level playing field with larger operators, claiming the rates they pay compared with the large multiples is unfair and disproportionate. But retail sector representatives have said that alcohol only represents a small part of their turnover and that the two sectors were not comparable.  Pedals and Beer Pumps Tour 2010 Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:54:00 +0000 Former Beautiful South frontman Paul Heaton is getting on his bike for a tour of UK pubs. "I'm looking forward to pedalling around the country to promote cycling and the British pub," he said. "Both are very close to my heart. I've been cycling all my life and the British pub has provided most of my favourite stop off points. It saddens me to hear about so many pubs closing on a weekly basis so I want to do all I can to get people back to their local." Heaton made an appeal via The Publican, CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) and Facebook to see where fans wanted to see him play. Of the 912 suggested pubs he chose 16.  Pub for Sale Manchester, Droylsden Pub for Sale Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:59:00 +0000   Droylsden Pub for Sale, Greater Manchester Bowling Green Inn Fairfield Road, Droylsden Manchester Greater Manchester M43 £ 85,000 + VAT Freehold Public house/development land for sale with full vacant possession. Unconditional offers are invited for our clients unencumbered interest. The property represents excellent value for continued licensed use / owner occupation. There is also enormous potential for redevelopment (residential / commercial / mixed use) subject to gaining the appropriate Local Authority consents. Manchester Pub for Sale  Cheshire Public house/development Land for Sale Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:55:00 +0000   Cheshire Pub for Sale Old Transporter Tanhouse Runcorn Cheshire WA7 Ground floor footplate: 3289 sq/ft* £ 90,000 + VAT Leasehold Lease length: 61 Old Transporter Pub for Sale, Cheshire  Pub for Sale Basingstoke, Hampshire Pub for Sale Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:42:00 +0000  Pub for Sale Basingstoke Three Barrels Winklebury Centre Basingstoke Hampshire RG23 Gross Site Area: 6232 sq/ft* £ 85,000 + VAT Leasehold Leasehold Public house/development land for sale with full vacant possession - 99 years from 1977 @ £12,000 per annum rent. Winklebury is a large suburb located two miles north-west of central Basingstoke. The Winklebury Centre is the main precinct as it houses a handful of shops including John Burton's butchery, a chemist, a newsagent and winklebury cycles. The centre also houses doctor's surgeries and a public house (The Three Barrels). Unconditional offers are invited for our clients unencumbered interest. The property represents excellent value for continued licensed use / retail owner occupation or investment. The existing use class of the property is A4 'Drinking Establishments'. Planning consent is not required to change the current use to A1 (shops), A2 (financial and professional services) or A3 (restaurants and cafes). Rateable value: £32,000 Three Barrels Pub for Sale Hampshire  Sky 3D In Your Local Pub Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:06:00 +0000 Sky 3D will first launch in pubs up and down the country, giving as many people as possible the opportunity to experience the magic of 3D TV. A selection of pubs will screen 3D to begin with and as more 3D TV’s become available we’ll be taking 3D to your local. To keep up to date with the latest news and to find out when Sky 3D is coming to your local pub, sign up to their newsletter.  Pubs For Sale in The UK Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:19:00 +0000 UK pubs for sale. As a property investment or development opportunity, run down, disused or delicensed freehold pubs, bars and hotels are currently under market value and present excellent redevelopment, modernisation and refurbishment opportunities Paramount Investments also specialise in the sale of commercial, licensed, industrial, leisure, office, retail, residential, healthcare, retirement and student freehold property for investment and redevelopment. Web Blog  Hampshire Freehold Pub and Development Land For Sale Thu, 25 Feb 2010 10:24:00 +0000  Hampshire Freehold Country Pub For Sale Coburns High Street Lyndhurst Hampshire SO43 Ground floor footplate: 1376 sq/ft* £ 325,000 Freehold ALL OFFERS INVITED - Public house/development land for sale, subject to an occupational tenancy until 2024 with a current rent of £21,990pa. In addition the purchaser will have the benefit of substantial additional income from beer sales. Unconditional offers are invited for our clients unencumbered interest. The property represents excellent value for continued licensed use / owner occupation. There is also enormous potential for redevelopment (residential / commercial / mixed use) subject to gaining the appropriate Local Authority consents. Lyndhurst Hampshire Pub For Sale  Buying a Pub for Redevelopment Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:16:00 +0000 As a property investment or development opportunity, run down, disused or delicensed freehold pubs, bars and hotels are currently under market value and present excellent redevelopment, modernisation and refurbishment opportunities  The Office of National Statistics Confirms the Trend Towards Home Drinking Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:49:00 +0000 Summary of Key findings; Circumstances in which people drank. Home was the most frequently mentioned place where those who drank last week drank on their heaviest (or most recent) drinking day. Forty six per cent of men and 57 per cent of women had drunk alcohol in their own home in the previous week, and 8 per cent of male drinkers and 15 percent of female drinkers had been drinking in someone else’s home. A third of male drinkers (33 percent) had been in a pub or bar, compared with only one fifth (20 per cent) of female drinkers. Among those who had had an alcoholic drink in the previous week, 10 per cent of men and 9 percent of women had been drinking alone on the most recent drinking day or the day when they had the most to drink. The most common companions for those drinking with other people were their spouse or partner (37 per cent of male drinkers and 44 percent of female drinkers) and friends (48per cent and 43 per cent respectively). Office of National Statistics  Freehold Pub and Development Land For Sale Chipping Norton Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:02:00 +0000    Oxfordshire Inn For Sale Crown Inn School Road, Finstock Chipping Norton Oxfordshire OX7 Ground floor footplate: 4688 sq/ft* £ 330,000 Freehold ALL OFFERS INVITED Freehold public house/development opportunity for sale subject to an occupational tenancy until 2014 at a rent of £14,000 per annum. In addition the purchaser will have the benefit of substantial additional income from beer sales. The adjacent Post Office and land is also included in the sale although our client cannot prove freehold title (either because the deeds are missing for some other reason i.e. they were in adverse possession of the property). Our client can provide a statutory declaration covering the period from 2002 although they do not have a claim for adverse possession as they can't prove title for a period of 12 continuous years. There is also enormous potential for redevelopment (residential / commercial / mixed use) subject to gaining the appropriate Local Authority consents. The existing use class of the property is A4 'Drinking Establishments'. Planning consent is not required to change the current use to A1 (shops), A2 (financial and professional services) or A3 (restaurants and cafes). Crown Inn Chipping Norton  Brewery Targets Supermarket Sales Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:44:00 +0000 Diageo is to ramp up its marketing efforts in supermarkets as it looks to tap into the growth in at-home drinking. The drinks marker, owner of the Guinness and Smirnoff brands, is reportedly looking to strength its relationships with some of the UK’s biggest retailers to try and boost its share of the growing on-trade market. Simon Litherland, Diageo’s managing director for Great Britain, told the Sunday Telegraph the company is looking to “strike a collaborative relationship” with supermarkets “that is good for us and them.” “We’ve got to get the right share of promotions, the right share of display in stores,” he adds. The move follows Official of National Statistics last month that confirmed the shift towards at-home drinking. Almost a third (29%) of UK consumers said they had bought alcohol in a supermarket in 2009, up from 25% in 2008. Diageo has already repositioned its Guinness brand in the UK as a drink to be enjoyed at home as well as well as in the pub.  London Town Enters Pre-Pack Administration and puts 44 Pubs up for Sale Mon, 22 Feb 2010 13:39:00 +0000 The future of 44 pubs in the London Town group is under threat after the company entered a pre-pack administration last week. PricewaterhouseCoopers was appointed as joint administrator of London Town and one of its subsidiaries, GRS Inns on Friday. A group headed up by London Town's existing management has bought the pubs business, taking over most of the existing staff, under a complicated restructuring deal. London Town operates 350 pubs under lease and tenancy agreements or through the direct management of pubs, while GRS Inns operates 44 leased pubs.  Radio 4 Celebrates the Pub Landlord and Landlady Sat, 20 Feb 2010 14:21:00 +0000 A celebration of the pub landlord and landlady. With pubs disappearing at the rate of more than three a day, signalling one of the most rapid cultural shifts of recent times, half a dozen landlords and landladies reflect on life as a licensee and explore what we're in danger of losing besides the beer and the buildings. This rueful view from behind the bar includes reflections on the qualities of a good landlord or landlady, their role as community confessional and settler of tap room fights, dispenser of best bitter and pearls of wisdom. The programme hears from from old hands like Barbara, an ex-Bunny girl who runs The Grapes in London's Limehouse; Tetley Dave who fought a battle to keep The Shoulder of Mutton from closing in Castleford; Maureen from Langsett who's famous for her pies; ex miner Dennis from Barnsley, whose bête noir is health and safety; and former Cambridge academic Tim, who's taken early retirement to open his first pub in York, The Pheonix, just as others around are shutting up shop. How have they kept their marriages together, living and working on the premises? How much of a temptation was it to hit the top shelf after a hard day's graft behind the bar? Why do they think the pub can help teach the next generation how to hold their drink? And how do they bar an objectionable customer without starting a Wild West-style bar room brawl? Available only until 26 February Episode 2 in on this Friday 26 February, Radio 4 at 11am  Pub Cos, Property and Competition; Why Local Pubs are Closing Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:09:00 +0000 Any landlord can give you a litany of reasons for why the pub industry is so tough; from spiralling energy costs to tax hikes and the smoking ban. But two things get them most animated: the "beer tie", which forces half of the country's pubs to buy drinks from a particular brewer (often at vastly inflated prices), and the multinational companies known as "Pub Cos". Half of the UK's pubs are owned by Pub Cos, the two biggest owning a quarter. The dominance of the Pub Cos can be traced to 1989 when the Thatcher government tried to inject competition into the pub industry. Breweries with more than 2,000 pubs were ordered to sell off their excess, and offer a "guest beer". The cleverer breweries worked out that there was nothing to stop any number being owned by a company that didn't make beer. So they set up property companies to own vast numbers of pubs and force licensees to buy off a brewer. Landlords rarely go on the record against their Pub Co, but one who runs a barely profitable pub in the Midlands told The Independent how rents and drink prices go up whenever the company that owns his building needs an extra injection of cash. "Two years ago I had a rent review and they upped it from £40,000 to £60,000 a month," he said. "The price of drinks through my tie has gone up 22 per cent in two years. We have no choice but to pass the hike on to the customer who will hit the supermarket instead." A growing number of MPs believe the power of the Pub Cos needs to be tackled. "We need radical and effective reform," says Greg Mulholland MP, who chairs the All Party Parliamentary Save the Pub Group. "The Pub Cos have shown they are not prepared to regulate themselves." The Independent  Pub Closure News; UK Pub Saved By Local Co-Op Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:03:00 +0000 The Star Inn in Salford is about as far away from the world of gastro-pubs as its possible to get. Hidden from passing trade up a narrow lane, it is very much a local's local. Behind the green swing doors the Star is warm and steeped in local history. The weekly darts tournament is still played on a "Manchester log-end", a wooden board that has to be kept in a bucket of water to keep soft. Ten years ago this corner of northern Salford boasted eight pubs within walking distance of the Star. One by one they've closed their doors. Before Christmas the Star nearly went the same way. Robinsons, the brewery, decided to sell up and gave three weeks' notice of closure. But the Star's locals formed a co-op and bought their drinking hole for £80,000. "It was a simple decision really," says Dr Tim Worden, a local GP and one of the 65 shareholders in the Star. "Some of us who live here wanted our godchildren to see what a local pub looks like. If the Star went that would have been the end. The nearest pub would have been a good 20 minutes' walk away or a taxi trip into town. And we all know what the pubs there are like." In recent years communities have resorted to co-operatives to save village shops and Post Offices – but pubs missed out on this trend. That is slowly changing. The Star is the second pub to have turned itself into a full co-op complete with shareholders and – if the profits come in – dividends paid in cash or beer. Two more co-op pubs, one in Cumbria and one in West Yorkshire, are in the process of opening. And Britain's first pub co-op, the Old Crown in the Hesket Newmarket, Cumbria, is going from strength to strength. "They won't work in every instance but in communities where you're down to the last pub a co-op could do extremely well," says Ed Mayo chief of the national umbrella body for co-ops, Co-operatives UK. "It's worth pointing out that co-ops have a wonderful track record of thriving in tough industries." And industries don't come much tougher. According to the British Beer and Pub Association 39 pubs are closing every week. A new report from Co-Operatives UK estimates that 2,700 pubs will collapse in the next 12 months, compared to 2006 when there were just 316 net closures. Back in the Star Inn, the locals are planning a series of reforms too. Robinson's beers have been replaced by ales from a local micro-brewery and there are plans to place tables outside for the summer. Says local Margaret Fowler: "It will stay a pub where you meet people from all walks of life. As soon as you walk through that door you're all treated equally." The Independent  Bury St Edmunds Pub for Sale, Suffolk Sun, 14 Feb 2010 12:11:00 +0000  Suffolk Pub for Sale Ipswich Arms Tayfen Road Bury St. Edmunds Suffolk IP32 Gross Site Area: 5944 sq/ft* £ 225,000 + VAT Freehold Ipswich Arms For Sale  Norwich Freehold Public House For Sale Sun, 14 Feb 2010 11:06:00 +0000  Norwich Country Inn for Sale Bell Inn Barnham Broom Norwich Norfolk NR9 Gross Site Area: 20565 sq/ft* £ 225,000 + VAT Freehold Bell Inn for Sale Norwich  Suffolk Country Inn For Sale Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:55:00 +0000   Suffolk Pub for Sale Lord Nelson Inn Mill Road, Holton Halesworth Suffolk IP19 Gross Site Area: 19896 sq/ft* £ 245,000 + VAT Freehold Lord Nelson Inn For Sale, Halesworth  Pub For Sale, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:39:00 +0000  Norfolk Pub for Sale Anson Arms Southtown Road Great Yarmouth Norfolk NR31 Gross Site Area: 17993 sq/ft* £ 250,000 + VAT Freehold Anson Arms Pub For Sale  Liverpool Pub Sale; Banksy Mural Pub Goes Under Hammer Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:22:00 +0000 A Liverpool pub daubed with an authentic Banksy mural — of a gun-toting rat — will go under the hammer at an auction on 18 February at the Liverpool Marriott. Gun toting rat: is it valuable? The Whitehouse has been included in the Sutton Kersh sale with a guide price of £70,000 to £80,000.The price tag does not take into account any added value that may be attributed to the artwork, but auctioneers anticipate it may generate offers above the suggested value.  Norfolk Country Pub for Sale, Norwich Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:48:00 +0000  Norfolk Pub for Sale Grove Cadge Road Norwich Norfolk NR5 Gross Site Area: 24562 sq/ft* £ 250,000 + VAT Freehold Public house/development land for sale with full vacant possession. Unconditional offers are invited for our clients unencumbered interest. The property represents excellent value for continued licensed use / owner occupation. There is also enormous potential for redevelopment (residential / commercial / mixed use) subject to gaining the appropriate Local Authority consents. Grove pub for Sale, Norfolk  Pub for Sale, Thetford, Norfolk Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:26:00 +0000  Norfolk Pub For Sale Red Lion Hockwold Thetford Norfolk IP26 Gross Site Area: 12342 sq/ft* £ 275,000 + VAT Freehold Red Lion Pub for Sale, Thetford  |
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