Punch Taverns not peturbed by loss of Publicana

The news of Blackpool based Publicana going into administration has been met with calm disregard by the Pubcos company Punch Taverns who it managed a number of venues for. They will be talking to the administrators about transferring the dozen or so sites to another management company.

Indeed Punch Taverns are embarking on a investment drive, investing £20m on 450 of its pubs across the UK, to help Partners drive trade and grow their businesses.

The Investing For Growth (I4G) scheme will see an average of £37,000 spent at each pub to deliver small-scale improvements and ‘sparkles’ that will set pubs up for success and help increase trade in the run-up to the important World Cup and summer trading period.

Questions are still being asked as to what went wrong for Publicana which seemed to be in a strong profitable position, at one time managing close to 130 outlets nationally, with its model of taking over under-performing venues and temporary management sites.

Party Beer united on reform of Pubcos

With the announcement by the Conservative party that a Tory government would offer a free of tie option to tenants by June 2011, all three parties are now committed to driving through reform for the Great British pub.

A spokesman for David Cameron said: “The Conservative Party supports the idea that should the industry fail to deliver self-regulation by June 2011, the Government of the day should end up consulting on putting the Code of Practice on a statutory basis.
"The Government have agreed to this and we are happy with this position.”

Labour's commitment has been re-iterated. It said: "A non-tie option should be available for pub tenants; we will act if the industry fails to make progress on this.”
The manifesto also backs up the recent announcement made by pubs minister John Healey to set aside funding to help communities buy pubs and outlaw the use of restrictive covenants.

The Liberal Democrats were the first party to speak out on the issue, saying they would radically reform the “one-sided” beer tie that has gone “out of control” and is hastening pub closures. It would be part of a package of measures to help pubs that include scrapping rises in beer duty and letting councils grant 50% rate relief for sole pubs in villages.

So one thing is certain now whatever parliament we see after the election is over, reform of the Pubcos system will come!