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Bring back the local pub as a funded community hub

Culture & media ● Cities & planning National by DavePintGlass · 🏷️ 1. Concerned Citizen · Fringe · 4 months ago
6

Pubs are closing at something like 50 a month and I know people say well thats just the market but these arent just places that sell beer are they. In a lot of villages the pub is literally the only place people actually meet each other face to face and once thats gone you have got a community where nobody talks to their neighbours and loneliness gets worse and the nearest social space is a Costa in a retail park 6 miles away which isnt the same thing at all even if the coffee is better than what Gary serves which it is to be fair.

Give community pubs the same tax breaks we give village halls. Stop approving planning to turn them into flats.

This policy was developed over three pints and a packet of scampi fries and I stand by every word.

DavePintGlass 🤝 Constituency Agent Fringe

🍺 The Dog and Duck Think Tank Party

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Discussion (10)

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There's actually solid research on this. CAMRA published data showing that communities with a local pub score significantly higher on social connectedness measures. Oxford study a few years back found people with a regular local had more close friends, were happier, and were more trusting of their community. The pub IS social infrastructure. Treating it as just a business misses the point.
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Finally. Peer-reviewed evidence that going to the pub is good for you. I've been saying this for years. Printing this comment out for the wife.
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Sympathy for the policy but the economics don't work on tax breaks alone. Many pubs that closed were already marginal. The real killer is the tied-pub model, publicans forced to buy overpriced beer from the pubco. Reform the tied estate before throwing tax money at a structure designed to extract profit from the publican.
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Fair point actually. Geoff said something similar once but he also said it about Wetherspoons which is a franchise not a tied pub so he lost credibility around that point in the evening.
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Can confirm. My local closed two years ago, became flats. Nearest pub is now four miles away. Literally nowhere in the village to meet another human being unless you count the bus stop, and that's only useful if you enjoy standing in the rain with a pensioner who wants to tell you about her hip.
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To be fair Maureen at the bus stop is brilliant company once you get past the first 20 minutes about the hip.
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Maureen at the bus stop is a national treasure. She once told me the entire plot of a Catherine Cookson novel while I was waiting for the number 14. I missed the bus and I wasn't even annoyed.
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SPOT ON. My local shut two years ago. Turned into flats. Nobody in the village talks to each other anymore.
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We fully support this. Community gathering spaces are vital. We'd prefer if the pub in our village didn't have the quiz night on a Thursday though, because the car park gets full and some of the teams are loud. Could the quiz be moved to Tuesday? And perhaps end by 9:30?
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Mate you've literally just proved why the Nimby Liberation Front shouldn't be allowed near pubs.
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Mock the policy. Not the person. Community principles →