Long live the local pub in Cambridge
Following my trip to Ennerdale in Cumbria and the inspirational story provided by Peter Maher there in relation to the community ownership of the Fox and Hounds this ostensibly urban story reinforces the importance in rural or urban environments of the pub as a community driver. In affluent Cambridge thriving pubs are being closed to realise a profit, a world away from pubs closing in rural areas due to a lack of custom. I am sure however notwithstanding different causes the outcome of the loss of the pub for its given community has a common impact. Read on and let me know what you think about this example of how the national planning policy framework has provided a positive impetus for the protection of community facilities.
Pubs are closing across the country. This happens for a variety of reasons – the economic climate, increasing beer prices, supermarket discounting of alcohol and changing drinking habits.
There’s nothing one can do, or indeed should do, to try to prevent the owner of an unviable business closing it down and making alternative use of the land. However, in Cambridge we have a particular problem. Because house prices are so high, it is sometimes worthwhile for the owner of a popular, profitable, viable pub to seek to pull it down and replace it with a block of flats, so that they can make even more money.
Following a large number of pub closures – and public campaigns to keep some of them open – in early 2012 Cambridge city council began to investigate ways it could use the planning system to try to keep popular and profitable pubs open.
We had no policy on pubs in the 2006 local plan, and nothing much in national guidance until the National Planning Policy Framework was launched in March 2012. The first thing we did was commission the Cambridge Public House Study to give us some data and evidence that could be used to back up any planning policy change.