Government cancels Community-Owned Pubs Support Programme
The coalition government has this month announced it will close down a £3.3 million support programme that aimed to help communities turn local pubs threatened with closure into community-owned co-operatives.
The Community-Owned Pubs Support Programme, announced by the Labour government in March this year, was part of a 12 point plan to help pubs struggling to stay afloat during the recession.
It was intended that the government would provide grants to be match-funded by Co-operative and Community Finance to help 50 communities transform their local pubs into community co-operatives.
While the programme had not officially launched, project leaders the Plunkett Foundation had already received 82 expressions of interest from communities hoping to save their local pub.
Yet despite David Cameron pledging to 'introduce new powers to help communities save local facilities and services threatened with closure' as part of plans to bring about the Big Society, the coalition government has announced the programme will be cancelled, and replaced with just a guidance leaflet for communities facing pub closure.
Speaking in response to the announcement, Chief Executive of the Plunkett Foundation Peter Couchman said, "This is devastating news for each community which had hoped to save their local as a co-operative. The government has turned its back on communities who were looking to take more responsibility over their everyday lives. The scheme was based on bringing together the expertise in the co-operative movement which currently helps to save ten percent of all village shops facing closure."
The Plunkett Foundation has called an emergency Co-operative Pub Summit to take place this month which will aim to address the cancellation of the programme and will unite representatives from the co-operative sector to explore alternative ways of helping communities take co-operative ownership of pubs.
Peter added, "While we appreciate that an important driver for the government is reducing the deficit, we can't leave these people stranded by this decision and we are determined to help if we can. The summit will look at how the expertise and resources from the co-operative movement can save some elements of the scheme without the government. We don't know how, but we are determined to try."
In the meantime, the Plunkett Foundation has published a list of existing support services on their website for communities wishing to take ownership of their local pub.
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