| Prince leads
Pub Campaign |
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Prince
Charles, the Prince of Wales, has given his strong support to a new campaign
designed to save the traditional English country pub, as a hub
of local life in rural England.
In mid December,
the Prince helped launch a new campaign
called "The Pub is the Hub", to stop, and possibly reverse, the rapid disappearance
of traditional English country pubs. At the end of 2001, there are about
7000 village pubs left in England - but these are currently disappearing
at the rate of about six per week. The
campaign comes as new figures show that half of all English villages now
have no pub and seven out of ten do not have a village shop.
In his introduction
to the campaign guide, Prince Charles writes: "Rural communities,
and this country's rural way of life, are facing unprecedented
challenges. Now, perhaps more than ever in their history, they must draw
on their resourcefulness and resilience,
built up over centuries, to meet changing circumstances and find new ways
to help themselves. But they need not and, indeed cannot, do it alone.
"Most people agree
that one of the major difficulties for those living in today's countryside
is a lack of services. This guide....
shows how pubs and communities can work together to their mutual benefit
to help prevent the loss of vital services."
Village pubs are more than just
another service; in many cases they are the centre of village life. More
and more of them have shown their great potential
to revitalise and maintain essential
local services while at the same time increasing their own long term viability.
While some have diversified into restaurant activities, others have combined
the operations of pub and village shop, or even pub, shop and post office,
thus helping to save other local services which have also been threatened
with closure.
According to Margaret
Clark, the director of Britain's Countryside Agency, "Pubs are at the heart
of rural communities across the country, serving not only the locals but
visitors, holidaymakers and nearby townspeople as well. Delivering other
services makes sense for the pub and for the community."
There are four main
reasons for the disappearance of rural pubs. In some cases, notably in
the North, rural depopulation means that there are no longer enough people
in a village to support a pub. In other cases, rural pubs are losing customers
because many young people prefer larger pubs in town, with more music and
games. Thirdly, many pubs no longer belong to their landlords,
but have been taken over by large brewery
chains whose main interest is profit, not serving the community. And finally,
rural pubs have been badly hit by the fact that most people in modern Britain
do not drink and drive.
Across Britain, innovating
landlords have already come up with lots of different ideas to help revive
the fortunes of their pub. One pub in Lancashire now doubles as a chapel,
a pub in Derbyshire now provides a local computer training club, a pub
in Somerset now has an art gallery and small concert hall, and there are
other interesting innovations too!
For hundreds of years, pubs have
played an important social role in community life in Britain; more than
just a drinking place, the pub has been a meeting place, a talking place,
the heart of local sports clubs, and much much more. Now, if pubs need
to become village shops too, or village post offices, that will just be
another development in their long history.... and a positive development
too. A village with no pub is not much more lively
than a pub with no beer.
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Pictures
Top: Prince Charles
Below: village pubs
Photos: London Press Service and
British Tourist Authority
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Going
further.........
Role
Play activity, leading to writing activity:
The pub in your village is closing.
The owner says that he can't earn a decent living, and anyway he wants
to retire. A village committee has been formed, to try and save the pub.
Imagine a meeting of this committee, in the presence of the following people;
a) John Westlake, the retiring
publican,
b) Ted Crowe, representative
of the big brewery that currently supplies the pub;
c) Roddy Richards, a representative
of a small local brewery, specialising in "real ale" (high quality traditional
beer)
d) Peter Gate, aged 62,
who has just retired as manager of a big supermarket.
e) Mandy Rice, a local
artist and art teacher.
f) Ethel Partridge, aged
76, who runs the village shop.
g) Brian Ironbridge (mind
the pronunciation!), the customer service manager of the Post Office in
the nearest town.
h) Jason Rice, Mandy's
teenage son
i) Pattie Partridge, Ethel's
great granddaughter, aged 15.
j) Pete Blundell, from
the county council, who has some ideas about financial aid packages.
Each should prepare his or her
ideas before the meeting of the committee, which has to decide what to
do with the pub.
Stage
2: Produce a short article for the local newspaper, outlining
the project proposed by the committee, after this meeting. |
WORDS
benefit: advantage -
brewery:
a company which makes beer and other drinks - community:
people living in a defined area, or sharing a common interest - hub:
centre, central point - lack: absence - landlord:
publican, owner of a pub - launch: start - lively:
dynamic, alive - potential: ability, power - rate:
speed, rhythm - resilience: flexibility - resourcefulness:
spirit of invention - revitalise: give new life to - threatened
with: in danger of - unprecedented: new, unknown -
viability:
profitability, economic success -
The Pub is the Hub is available
on the Countryside Agency web site at www.countryside.gov.uk |
linguapress.com © |
