Budding Hairdresser Wanted?
Another Article about Community Pubs.
The following words ring very true and pubs are becoming an endangered species.
Most days I drive past a pub about which I once wrote: “A smashing local that bridges the gap between rural boozer and pretentious gastro”. It’s currently closed, a dark and shuttered space where locals once downed pints and cracked jokes. I don’t know if it will open again; perhaps the future is a private house called The Old Inn or yet another Tesco Metro.
However, as this article stresses, the new Community Hub or as the government would like to put it “The more than a Pub” is now fast becoming a trend. And we are in near the beginning. There are only something like 40 odd community owned pubs at the moment but the signs are improving that community ownership and making your pub into something better and more appealing is the way to go.
Thankfully, we are fighting back. Call it people power, community action or even the Big Society, but the past few years have seen the emergence of campaigners determined to show that a pub’s closure is not forever. Even the Government is lending a hand: a £3.6 million ‘Community Pub Business Support Programme’ was announced just this week.
The article discusses several community pub projects but the one that caught my eye is:
…the award-winning Gallaghers Pub and Barbers, which had been closed for two years before being reopened in 2010. This resurrection came about by chance; barbershop owners Sue and Franky Gallagher were looking for new premises and kept driving past the closed pub.
“Our original plan was to fit a barber’s in and keep the bar as a novelty,” says Sue Gallagher. “The place was in a terrible state. We bought it off the brewery and then Franky, who likes a challenge, couldn’t stand having a second-rate bar, so he learnt all about real ale. Our business plan was based on it being a barber’s rather than a pub, or the bank wouldn’t have loaned us the money.”
They must be doing something right. When we spoke, Sue proudly told me that they had just won Wirral Camra Pub of the Year for the sixth time in a row.
There is a list of the top 10 community pubs. Let’s see if by this time next year we could be working our way onto the list.
Please read the original article by Adrian Tierney Jones, who appears to be the beer correspondent, in the Lifestyle section of the Online Telegraph.
