Demise of our local pubs

The Northcote Arms, Grove Green Road
06.09.2014
Enterprise Inns.

Friendly, family-centred East End community pub, strong Irish and WI presence among predomwinantly WWC clientele.
3 bars. Lounge bar w pool table not well used, public bar and a small snug. Very childfriendly, dogfriendly.
Larger than I remembered it.
Nicely-kept beer garden in old stableyard.
Beautiful period building architecturally. Ceiling has been replaced but repairs are obvious, annaglypta has been removed. Clean and well cared for.
Sign outside: pub business for sale: Good terms.

Carling and John Smith keg at £3/pt but mo handpumps or real ale.
The clientele were chavvy rough diamonds, very friendly (though I rejected the advances of what appeared to be a friendly staffy/ridgeback cross puppy!)

The pub building itself is lovely and well maintained with much original Victorian leaded and stained glass inside and out. Old stable block worth listing.  Took a photo.

The Landlady said they've tried to get new tenants many times, but the rentcharged by Enterprise is too high for the busuness, and so are the business rates.

Pub is clearly thriving; the finances don't stand up due to high pubco rent and borough rates.

Hardly a failing business on its own terms, but not very enticing to those outside the existing clientele.
Katy.

The Heathcote Arms, Grove Green Road E11.
(06.09.2014)
Stonegate pub company.

The truly voluminous Heathcote Arms (an early local Stonegate acquisition) had a very jolly, fat German security guard on the door. Inside were mostly young families, with children playing in the garden. Very few customers inside and no-one behind the bar.  It also did not at first appear to do real ale any more, but there were two hand-pumps tucked away in what used to be the lounge bar when the pub was still divided into smaller areas, one of which had a Greene King IPA clip attached. (Not exactly adventurous.)

As the pub was practically empty at 6.30 on a sunny Saturday evening, I asked Herr Security if it got busier later. "No, never" he replied.

I returned the following evening, Sunday 7th, and sat with Bill and Maureen in the beautifully refurbished garden outside.  Maureen told me the garden had been improved after the introduction of the smoking ban in 2007.

There was loud thumpy pop music playing in the pool hall, where several young men were playing pool or watching TV on a television screen that appeared to have the sound turned down (or maybe the awful pop music was so loud that it had drowned out the commentator!).  The main public seating area was being well used, mainly by middle-aged couples.  In the dining area - which I was pleased to see Stonegate have put a door into so that it can be kept away from the noisy side of the L-shaped bar - there were some empty plates (obviously the Sunday dinner trade had been good), and a smell of good food!  Apart from two elderly gentlemen enjoying a quiet pint together in a corner and a group of men of various ages holding a semi-formal meeting around a large table, there was no-one in that part of the pub.  There was no music and it was very pleasant and comfortable.

The Heathcote's main problem seems to me to be that by knocking it into one big bar it is now too large and impersonal to cater well for all tastes, and so has become less attractive.  The garden and public bar area are good for families and socialising over a drink, besides the pool hall which obviously predominantly attracts young men.  The cosy lounge and attached dining area could be made more of, and closed off more effectively.  Stonegate have a good record of refurbishing and re-branding pubs, and I would like to think that that was what was about to happen in this case.  However, the Manager said that Stonegate have sold the premises, and that even Nick the Area Manager was unable to tell him the details of the sale.

Bill told me that a group of regulars were getting up a petition (to whom and asking them to do what I didn't ask) to try to get the pub re-opened.  Of course, if it has already been sold then it's pretty pointless.

Bill said the only way to save a pub is to use it and drink there every day!  Rather than destroy your liver, I would suggest the best course is having the occasional drink somewhere and listing the pub as an Asset of Community Value BEFORE it is sold, so that the sale has to be notified.
Once it has been sold, there is no-one who can be petitioned.

With the Northcote unable to find new tenants, there is no other nearby pub - certainly not one as nice as the Heathcote Arms.  The only fairly nearby ones are in Leytonstone High Road, the Antic pub in Leyton Town Hall, the Birkbeck, or - for the truly desperate - the Coach and Horses.  None are really very close, and are mostly not community pubs.
possible uses I can think of are as a mosque, a large corner shop (which would effectively kill off the other local small traders who are surviving in the area), residential (or possibly a residential component above a retail premises), or with any luck to another pub company, which probably means one that caters exclusively for the Hackney Hipster crowd and will play loud music and charge over £4 for a pint of beer, effectively excluding most of the local community.


PS Very sad to see the Royston Arms on Chingford Mount boarded up. Lovely big, friendly community pub with a good kitchen and a huge garden; again probably too big for present turnover and unable to justify the cost of the rent and Business Rates.

The high rents and high Council Taxes seem to be the main factors in the Antelope (ex-Punch) and the Northcote going under, rather than a decline in pub-going (although that must be a factor too).  Maybe there should be a bit of a tax break for pubs from the Council. and perhaps that is something that we or CAMRA could be lobbying about.

Katy.