Heritage Pubs

Debate between Jim Shannon and Marco Longhi

Thursday 16th November 2023 Westminster Hall

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered heritage pubs.

It is a real pleasure to serve under your guidance, Mr Vickers, on a topic that I know you care about, particularly when it comes to those edifices that might be willing to serve you a rum baba, which I know you are keen on.

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for selecting my debate, even if it is on a Thursday when we know most MPs travel back to their constituencies, as indeed I would have done, so I am grateful to colleagues here today.

There are many people I should be thanking. First and foremost, I would like to thank the people of predominately Gornal and Sedgley, but also the wider area of Dudley and south Staffordshire, whose energy and dedication to the cause is second to none. I particularly thank the admins of the Facebook page, “Save The Crooked House (Let’s Get It Re-built)” for their unstinting voluntary effort at keeping the show on the road and for moderating the page. Why is that important? We know the police and the local authority have a painstaking job still to do, and things could be said that unwittingly militate against the common cause in a court of law.

I thank a former colleague of this place, though not in my time—Mr Greg Mulholland—for the part he has been playing supporting our efforts. Thanks also go to several others, including Campaign for Real Ale and Historic England. If I have forgotten to thank any person or institution, I apologise but many people have offered to help, including from overseas, such as in Canada, Australia, the US and even South Korea. The incident around The Crooked House pub has been reported on in broadsheets on every continent.

The demise of The Crooked House pub, while tragic in and of itself, has highlighted a much bigger issue nationwide. Put simply, the framework we have in place to protect our heritage pubs is simply not winning the war against unscrupulous developers or even against our changing socioeconomic environment, which means many establishments that were once profitable are not today. Our way of managing that decline most often leads to one outcome: the demise of the pub, often followed by the demise of the building, too. We need something better to be done.

There is an issue with councils underappreciating the risks to heritage pubs. Not enough heritage pubs have any listed protection, not least because everyone—the system, MPs—presume that pubs could be listed when, in fact, they are not. That happened with The Crooked House. Our system does not compel local authorities to keep a register of heritage pubs; it is voluntary. Historic England, which as I said earlier has been helpful, described the selection criteria that covers heritage pubs of note. It said,

“All medieval commercial buildings will be eligible for designation since they are exceptionally rare…Most buildings prior to about 1850 surviving in anything like their original form will be listable; intact contemporary details and fittings, both internal and external (like shop fronts, tiled decoration, counters and back-fittings) may justify a high grade. As with all buildings after about 1850, rigorous selection is necessary. Given the high rates of attrition, however, all buildings which retain claims to special architectural interest, irrespective of date, deserve careful consideration. Intact modern retail architecture of note is surprisingly rare, however, so it is important to identify these examples as well.”

Historic England places significance on the date of 1850. The Crooked House was built in 1765, and it had no listing protections whatever. The system as it is failed. It may also be true that some very old buildings do not merit listing. The date per se should not be the only criteria, as Historic England makes clear, but a building such as The Crooked House is the repository of tens of thousands of individual memories. It is the home of the collective memories of the communities surrounding it over centuries. In this case, it saw the birth of the industrial revolution, coalmining, limestone mining and steelworking. It saw the trials and tribulations of a people to whom we owe so much. All that is now burned and pulverised. We need to do more to prevent that from happening again.

That is why I would like to see local authorities being required to hold and review, perhaps yearly, a register listing all heritage pubs. Local authorities should also develop their own risk register so that any event, such as an advert for sale, triggers a system for closer monitoring of what happens to the building. I am also calling for heritage pubs that do not have a listing status to receive immediate temporary listing protections upon an application for listing being made. That system works well in Wales. When it was established—by chance, may I say—that The Crooked House was for sale, an immediate listing application was made, but the building was burned and demolished within days. The listing process never stood a chance of becoming effective.

There was extensive debate on this matter during the progress of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, with Ministers concerned by the practical implementation of such a system, since the listing system operates slightly differently in Wales and there would be challenges over scale—this is what I have been told—in England. I respond by saying that those challenges should be circumvented. They should not be a barrier to doing the right thing. How many more Crooked Houses do we need? How many more times do we want to see our own history ripped out of the heart of our local communities before this challenge over scale becomes small enough to manage?

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

First, I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing forward this important issue. He underlines the importance of heritage pubs and what they can do. I can think of three right away in my constituency. First, The Auld House in Moneyreagh was an old building that had to be renovated, and a new building has been erected, so a lot of the character has been lost, but the history of the Auld House is still there.

Then there is the history of Roma Hamill’s in Newtownards, which was blown up by the IRA back in the middle ’80s. Because of the bomb it had to be rebuilt, but it is a heritage pub in the middle of the town that has been there for generations.

The oldest one in Newtownards is now called The Parlour, but it was previously called The Old Cross. It was built in 1735. It is a heritage pub with real character, real history and real tradition. Those are the things that the hon. Gentleman is talking about. I agree with him, and it is important that they are retained and that, for a generational thing and historically looking back, we can have them for the next generation who come forward.

[Marco Longhi]

I very much welcome that intervention. When we achieve the rebuild of The Crooked House perhaps the hon. Gentleman and I can celebrate it over a pint in one of the establishments that he has just mentioned.

The debate that I referred to earlier about the passage of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 concluded that a building preservation notice section would be a more appropriate tool than the Welsh system, and that is now section 105 of the Act. However, a date for its implementation is still to be confirmed. I am also unclear as to how we could quickly apply it to scenarios that can evolve as fast as the one involving The Crooked House. The timing of how quickly such protections can be implemented is a key element in making that approach effective. Therefore, I must conclude that temporary listing protections would immediately mitigate the risk for pubs that are worthy of listing even while they remained unlisted. How would a building preservation notice be quickly applied and be quickly effective? Perhaps the Minister could assist me by addressing that point in his remarks.

A clear risk to heritage pubs is when they are being sold, often at speed, to developers that do not wish to maintain the building as a pub, thus not allowing enough time for a buyer who might wish to continue using the building as a pub. That is also why I am calling the local planning authorities to treat said buildings with a presumption against change of use, a bit like the way in which green-belt land has a presumption against residential development.

I am also calling for the sale of heritage pubs to be restricted initially, for a period of 12 months, to buyers who intend to continue running them as pubs. Such a sale would be at a value predetermined by independent valuers assessing the pub as a going concern. Such a restriction might seem counterintuitive to Conservatives such as you and me, Mr Vickers, but it would allow for time to find a prospective buyer who wishes to continue using the pub as a pub.

Too often, heritage pubs close needlessly because of these short timescales and the imbalance between prospective publicans and property developers, who always have greater purchasing power when assessing the asset for alternative development. What I am trying to do today is to give these heritage pubs and these buildings a better chance. To be clear, however, if the 12-month period passes and a buyer is not found, the pub would return to the open market.

Many people I have spoken to often refer to the system of assets of community value to protect heritage pubs. Yes, there have been some examples of where that system has worked, but it was actually designed for the likes of community halls and church buildings, rather than for commercial buildings and going concerns, which have different and more complex dynamics. It is a system that also relies on the local community to find the money required within a short timeframe of just six months, if, indeed, authorities even accept that ACV criteria have been met. Crucially, though, a freeholder can still refuse an offer to purchase their property under the ACV system.

A rich local community might more easily use ACVs, but many areas of the country cannot do so, and neither would the use of ACVs solve the revenue sustainability question, which is often unanswered even if the capital can be raised. Nevertheless, there is merit to ACVs, which is why I am also calling for local authorities to adopt a presumption in favour of ACV status being granted, and I ask that the ACV process be applied only after the 12-month sale restriction that I referred to earlier has ended. That would have the effect of offering local communities an 18-month window in which they could try to save their local heritage pubs, rather than having to work within the narrow six-month period under the ACV system.

I turn again to our much-loved Crooked House. There are questions arising from the event about the effectiveness of decisions taken by the fire service, the police service and the local authority, particularly on the management of risk. When the fire service attends and establishes suspicion of arson, that is communicated to the police, but the mechanism for that and how quickly it happens is unclear. While the site is still under a public service entity—if I may use that language a little loosely—the police attend and carry out their forensic work, at which point arson or otherwise is established. Crucially, even when arson is established—after which one might infer greater risk—the site by law is returned to the control of the freeholder.

There are clear questions for me on risk. Everybody in my local community was commenting that as soon as the fire had taken place, the building would be demolished. Notwithstanding specific instructions from the local authority not to do so, the building was immediately demolished. I must ask, therefore: is there a role here for legislation to step in and help prevent what was seemingly obvious to most from happening again?

To conclude, I will ask the Minister to reflect on the opportunities for substantially increasing remedies against breaches of existing and, perhaps, future law. What also seems apparent to most is that unscrupulous individuals simply factor in any of the current remedies, which are not particularly exacting, into their business plans. Thank you, Mr Vickers, and hon. Members for listening to me today. I look forward to the Minister’s considerations and, I hope, his support when I bring forward legislative proposals.