I have recently, and somewhat belatedly, finished watching Clarkson’s Farm 4, where Jeremy buys his pub. It was an interesting experience for me. Where I have previously found all of his farming shenanigans funny, I was a bit more frustrated at the poor decision-making opening a pub. Perhaps I now understand how the farmers feel. I hope the advice was for TV appeal rather than thinking it might work!
One item really struck me though, which was a little piece Jeremy did on what happens to a village if it loses its pub, and what is left of the village when that happens. His argument was that the village is little more than a dormitory, with no heart and soul, once the pub disappears. It didn’t escape me that while he was making that argument, he was also opening what looked very much like a roadside pub, one that would inevitably draw trade away from the local villages. Sure, the village might still retain some sense of community. It could have a shop (though I’m not entirely convinced that counts, if I’m honest).
But a club, a community centre – somewhere people can actually come together, that really does matter. In our two villages where we operate, one village has a cricket club and a shop. The pub competes with the cricket club as a community hub, and it is great that the two co-exist together.
In the other village, we are the only things left. No shop and no community centre. And the neighbouring two villages have nothing at all. We are their community, and as a result, the three villages now see themselves as a group of villages rather than separate ones.
The village Christmas and Summer parties all happen in the pub, and typically we have a good 100+ attending the events, which have slowly grown over the years. If we believe in community, then we need village pubs to survive. It would be relatively easy to give them support. Exemption from business rates if you are the only pub in the village would make easy sense. A grant if you are the only pub in the village would go further.
But just as important is planning and usage. As we move gently away from alcohol more and more, we are embracing the coffee occasion. Pubs need to become coffee shops so that those who want to meet have a place and a space that works for them.
One of my most depressing drives is across the A66, which joins the A1 to the M6 (you southerners probably won’t have heard of it). I am consistently upset by how busy the farm and coffee shops are, and how quiet the pubs are. The pubs along the strip need to figure out how to make themselves attractive to this market and deliver an offer that works.
How we do this is not easy. When we took on one of our pubs, we built a large extension at the back which not only added loads of covers but joined up a disused barn. We made the mistake of not branding it as a separate coffee venue.
As it happens, since Covid we have repurposed it as a wedding venue and are now building a decent wedding business. We’ve renamed it the Orangery and are now trying to work through how to brand it effectively as both a wedding venue and a coffee shop. Lots of fun.
I once went into a pub in the South that had a small coffee shop next door, run and owned together. I was fascinated watching customers come into the coffee shop who would never have gone into a pub, look around for the best seat, and then wander through to the pub because they preferred the seating. A great lesson in kerb appeal for me.
But of course, if you have a coffee shop and a bar then the danger is that you need two staff to open, and if you are not careful you have immediately lost any profitability you added. So how to work the model, and leave one half or your business unmanned, is a real skill, but an important one to learn.
So, while Jeremy Clarkson might only be seen in the pub drinking a pint, I think the market for coffee is an important one which we need to find a solution for in a fair proportion of our non-city-centre industry. As well, of course, as the government doing what they can for the community as well.
Alastair Scott is CEO of S4labour and owner of Malvern Inns.
