Agenda item

(Councillors Royce Longton and David Rendel declared a personal interest in Agenda item 14 by virtue of the fact that they were members of CAMRA. As their interest was personal and not a disclosable pecuniary interest they were permitted to take part in the debate and vote on the matter).

The Council considered a report (Agenda Item 14) setting out a response to a motion raised at the September 2013 Council meeting by Councillor Royce Longton pertaining to the action the Council could take in relation to the potential closure of public houses.

MOTION: Proposed by Councillor Hilary Cole and seconded by Councillor Quentin Webb:

That the Council:

“agrees the response to the Motion”.

Councillor Cole noted this report had been drafted following the submission of a Motion to the September 2013 Council meeting by Councillor Royce Longton. Councillor Cole reported that although the local closure rate of public houses was below the national average West Berkshire was not being complacent. Councillor Cole acknowledged that a well run public house was a real asset to a local community.  She was pleased to note that two public houses had already been listed as Assets of Community Value in the district. There were only 150 such listings across the country. One of these public houses had been saved from development and had recently been opened as a community pub.

Councillor Cole commented that she was not able to support the sixth recommendation in the original motion which asked the council to ‘lobby MPs and other political representatives to support CAMRA’s Fair Deal for Your Local campaign’. She was also not able to support the seventh proposal pertaining to the ‘price differential for beer between pubs and supermarkets’. Although she felt that it would not be appropriate for the Council to support these campaigns individual Members were of course free to do so. She therefore proposed acceptance of the first five recommendations and noted that the Council was already undertaking some action on these proposals. The recommendation before Members that evening was therefore to accept the first five items in the original Motion but to discount the last two.

AMENDMENT: Proposed by Councillor Royce Longton and seconded by Councillor Alan Macro:

“That the Council:

1.         Continue to support local communities in applying to list pubs as    Assets of Community value (p17, 3.4, 3.5);

2.         Encourage the West Berkshire Heritage Forum to include pubs of   historic or architectural interest, that currently lack a statutory      designation, in the Council’s Local Heritage Listing (p17, 3.6);

3.         Continue to promote and champion award winning local pubs and             encourage Parish Councils to draw attention to pubs of importance to     the local community in their Parish Plans (p19, 8(3), p18, 3.15);

4.         Ask officers to write to the Government seeking to close the loopholes        that currently, for example, allow the demolition of pubs, or their change of use to other commercial activities, without planning        permission (p19, 3(4), p18, 3.14)

5.         Use the CAMRA Public House Viability Test, in addition to other      viability tests, when considering planning applications involving pubs       (p20, 3(5))

6.         Lobby the Government to take measures to reduce the price differential     for beer between pubs and supermarkets, for example by reducing the            tax on beer, or introducing a minimum retail price, in line with the          Health and Wellbeing Strategy and as a further measure that could            help to reverse the    decline in pubs (p19, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3)”

Councillor Longton noted the public house was under serious threat and they were now closing at a rate of around 26 per week which equated to around 1300 closures per annum. Councillor Longton explained that one in six public houses had already closed nationally. He was therefore pleased to see that the Planning Policy Task Group had largely endorsed the recommendations in his Motion to the September 2013 Council meeting. However the response that had been drafted did not, in his opinion, include any actions and he therefore felt that he needed to table an amendment at this meeting.

Councillor Cole stated that while she was happy to accept the first five recommendations she was not able to support the sixth recommendation.

Councillor Alan Macro, in seconding the amendment, noted that at recent planning meetings there had been a lot of cynicism in relation to viability tests produced by the applicants and he therefore felt that the introduction of the CAMRA Public House Viability Test would provide a more objective measure.

In view of the statement made by Councillor Cole it was agreed that the amendment would be split into two parts (recommendations 1-5 as one group and then recommendation 6 would be taken separately) and thereby voted on in two parts.

Items 1 to 5 of the Amended Motion were put to the vote and declared CARRIED.

Items 6 of the Amended Motion was put to the vote and declared LOST.

Councillor Gordon Lundie stated that he felt that this was generally a good motion although he did have questions around the viability test. He felt that where a public house was taken over by a community it was by its very nature likely to be more viable. He was sorry that he was not able to support all aspects of Councillor Longton’s amendment.

The Substantive Motion (the original five recommendations including the first five recommendations of the amendment) was put to the meeting and duly RESOLVED.