The announcement of a £3.6 million Community Pub Business Support Programme comes as a major boost to prevent the threat of closure for local pubs in England through support for community ownership, according to CAMRA (the Campaign For Real Ale).
CAMRA’s Chief Executive Tim Page commented:
“With 27 pubs closing every week, CAMRA welcomes this great news from the Community Pubs Minister Marcus Jones. Pubs play a key role in communities, increasingly providing services which go above and beyond their traditional role. This programme will provide groundbreaking and comprehensive support for communities seeking to buy local pubs to save them from closure.
“The announcement of the The Community Pub Business Support Programme recognises the valuable contribution our pubs make in our villages, towns and cities, and brings confidence to communities who want to keep their pub open for business.
“We would like the government to build further on its support of the pub by cutting beer duty and ensuring that planning permission is required for a pub to be converted to any other use.”
CAMRA has actively campaigned for the preservation of local pubs by encouraging communities and pub-goers to persuade their local council to list their pub as an Asset of Community Value (ACV). So far more than 1,250 pubs are listed as ACVs and CAMRA aim to increase this to 3,000 by the end of 2016.
A list of pubs currently granted ACV status, as well as guidelines on how to nominate a pub, can be found on the CAMRA website here