"There's going to be a beer desert": Derbyshire landlords back lockdown campaign to 'save' county's pubs

CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, has launched a bid to give struggling pubs some much needed money through the tills by allowing them to be able to operate as off licenses during lockdown.

The new lockdown rules mean that whilst shops can continue to sell alcohol to take away, pubs can only do so via home delivery and not through a collection service as in previous lockdowns.

It is feared that this will significantly reduce the amount of beer pubs sell, as well as profits.

Chris and Alex Wilbraham run The Holly Bush Inn in Makeney, which survived the lockdowns in 2020 thanks to being able to sell cask beer in sealed containers for customers to take away.

Derbyshire homeless to be housed at adventure centre during lockdown

He said: “We still have massive overheads. We employ 26 people - some are on furlough but the managers still get paid. Selling takeaway effectively allowed us to still trade.

"Now we might have to start doing delivery but that’s even less profitable because you have to pay for all the petrol.

"Maybe in some places people were drinking in pub car parks, but not here. The way to stop that would be to hand the power to local authorities to ban open air drinking in lockdown.

"Even with the pubs closed, people can still buy beer in the supermarket and go and drink it in the park. So if you’re so against groups meeting and drinking, the new rules don’t even stop it.

“It’s frustrating. What is the difference in us selling beer in a sealed container and a supermarket doing the same?

“If you are a tenant you are screwed. You’ve still got overheads and still paying hand over fist for product. People in that position will not survive.

"There’s going to be a beer desert if the new rules are allowed to go ahead. I am already seeing local pubs folding. We can’t jump through any more hoops. We work so hard to make it Covid secure.

“It is a real kick in the teeth. The CAMRA campaign is vital. Otherwise, people are going to struggle.”

Chesterfield campaigner urges people struggling with their mental health to ‘reach out to others’

Josh Clarke, a brewer at Thornbridge in Bakewell who also helps his wife Emma run The Chesterfield Arms, shared Mr Wilbraham’s concerns.

He said: “At the first lockdown landlords were left with thousands of pounds worth of stock that they just had to pour down the drain.

"You could claim the duty back on it, but say a cask of beer costs £100, you would only get back £10, so it was nothing really.

“So to be able to sell that stock like an off license was an absolute life saver.

“We will have probably lost a year of trade by the time we are done, and this would give us a little bit of cash flow coming in to help us tick over. We still have weekly bills.

“People think that we’re okay because of furlough and grants, but the grants are a drop in the ocean, and many landlords are self-employed. Their staff might be furloughed, but the landlord might not have had a penny since March.

"Being able to sell some beer from the pub could bring in that few hundred pounds a week that will allow them to keep the lights on and buy food.”

Woman, 60, dies after being hit by car in Chesterfield

Mr Clarke added that allowing pubs to sell sealed containers of beer to take away is also vital to the survival of the brewing industry.

"There are thousands of small breweries in the UK,” he explained. “These are often one-person businesses that supply very few places.

"If they are only producing cask beer, which many of them do, they will not have been able to sell to pubs for a long time. If the pubs are allowed to sell take out then they still have a little bit of trade.

"It would also keep small breweries ticking over, and see them through to the summer when things can hopefully get started again.

"This campaign is about helping everybody. I don’t really understand why the Government would want to stop pubs selling as off licenses this time round.

"There are rumours about some pubs misbehaving and letting people drink in car parks but if there’s any truth to that, just those pubs should be punished.

Not the industry as a whole.

"Pub landlords have leveraged so much to stay in business and if they are not allowed to trade a little bit they will just end up wrapping up before they are allowed to start trading again. Then everybody loses out, including the taxpayer and banks.”

Selling as an off license was allowed all the way through the first lockdown and in the second one the Government initially tried to stop it but then changed its mind under pressure from the hospitality industry.

Covid-19 jab sites open at numerous locations in Derbyshire

CAMRA’s campaign was raised in the House of Commons during yesterday’s (January 6) emergency debate on the new lockdown restrictions in England.

National Chairman Nik Antona said:“It is absolutely unfair that whilst big supermarkets can continue to sell alcohol, our struggling local pubs in England can’t act as an off licence too.

“The least the Government can do is take a sensible approach, think again and allow community pubs to sell takeaway products. No-one wants to see drinking in the streets during a lockdown – but allowing pubs to sell alcohol in sealed containers for people to take home – just like shops do – would be completely reasonable.

“Without a change in these lockdown laws we risk seeing more locals going to the wall, traditional British cask ale under threat and people being forced into supermarkets instead of being allowed to support local businesses by buying beer from the pub to take home.”