Boost to community pubs with launch of review into restrictive covenants

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) have today (2 Aug) released a consultation on the "The use of restrictive covenants in the pub industry and their impact on local communities"

This consultation will run for 12 weeks, from 2 August 2011 to 5pm on 25 October 2011

The purpose of this consultation is to build an evidence base that assesses whether the use of restrictive covenants placed on pubs, and which prevent same purpose usage after sale, can have a negative impact on the well-being of local communities.
In particular, the consultation seeks views as to the extent of the use of covenants as well as scoping potential ways of dealing with them.

The Government believes that, under certain circumstances, the use of restrictive covenants can lead to the closure of pubs, which local people consider to be important community assets. These circumstances may include, but are not limited to, a pub that is the last in a particular area or where there is little scope to develop alternatives. Given the ability of covenants to ‘run with the land’ the use of restrictive covenants can risk not only closing an important community asset, but also removing the potential of it returning to that use in the future.

Co-operatives UK and the Plunkett Foundation has been lobbying for support for community owned pubs
including the Star Inn, Salford.  Examples of community owned pubs can be found on the Community Shares website including Hudswell Pub (George & Dragon) in Yorkshire.