Robert Neill
Main Page: Robert Neill (Conservative - Bromley and Chislehurst)
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
It is a pleasure to raise this issue in the Chamber, and I am delighted to see several hon. Members still here as we approach closing time—an appropriate metaphor, perhaps, given the subject of this debate.
Robert Neill
No, I hope not for the Porcupine.
I want briefly to set out what seems to be the particularly worrying pattern of behaviour that the proposal to demolish the Porcupine public house in Mottingham in my constituency highlights. It is obviously of great concern to residents of Mottingham, which, it is worth saying, is not an amorphous part of London suburbia, but a genuine village with a real sense of identity, and the Porcupine pub is a central part of that village community. It is also worrying because the behaviour of the two substantial companies involved has potential impacts beyond this case.
Perhaps I can put that into some context. There has been an inn on the site of the Porcupine public house since 1688. It is not, I accept, locally or statutorily listed, but it is steeped in history. There has always been a pub there in the middle of the village, and it is virtually the one remaining bit of community space left in the village, so it is of real significance to the people of the Mottingham area. It has a long local history. I am told that Tom Cribb, the 19th century world bare-knuckle boxing champion, trained in the Porcupine inn and that it has been called that since the days when a spiked machine was used to crush oats and barley in alehouses, so it has a long heritage and, as I say, is dearly loved by people in the Mottingham area. We have seen, however, a shabby and underhand means of closing this public house against the community’s wishes.
I am delighted to see the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) here to respond to the debate and I want to thank him personally for the trouble that he took to come down to Mottingham, visit the site and meet some of its residents—more of that in a moment. First, however, I want to thank some other people, because the campaign to save the Porcupine public house has seen many people doing a lot of hard work. It is worth mentioning Liz Keable and all the other committee officers of the Mottingham residents association, who have worked very hard; Emily Bailey, who started an online petition that has gathered more than 1,600 signatures; the local councillors, including my Conservative colleagues Charles Rideout and Roger Charsley, who represent the Mottingham ward of the London borough of Bromley, and Councillor John Hills, who represents the adjoining ward in the neighbouring London borough of Greenwich, just the other side of the road from the public house; hundreds of residents who have written in and e-mailed to support the campaign; and the 250-plus people who turned out when the Minister came to visit last week. I also wish to say special thank you to David Bingley, who started the campaign. Sadly, his ongoing hospital treatment means that he cannot be here to watch the debate from the Gallery, but I know he will be watching from his hospital bed, and I am sure that you will forgive me, Mr Speaker, if I say that we thank him for his efforts and wish him a speedy recovery.
That is the history of this public house and the strength of feeling surrounding it. The Porcupine was knocked down once before, in 1922, and on that occasion the brewery provided a temporary pub for people to use while it was rebuilt, but I am afraid that a very different attitude has been adopted now. In essence, the owner of the Porcupine pub, Enterprise Inns, has in my judgment deliberately let the pub run down and then sought to dispose of it for development. I am afraid Enterprise Inns has a bad track record in that regard. It is becoming frankly notorious for such behaviour. Its four annual reports show an alarming decline in the total number of pubs it operates, from 7,399 in September 2009 down to 5,902 in September 2012. Enterprise Inns seems to have a deliberate policy of running down its estate. It is quite clear from its annual report that, having disposed of more than 400 pubs in the last year, Enterprise Inns is disposing of assets to pay down debt. It is a company that, frankly, has not had good trading results. To my mind, it seems to be behaving more like a property company than a brewing company.
What Enterprise Inns has done in this case adds insult to injury. Not only did it dispose of the site, but it did so without giving any notice to the population. The site was never advertised. There was no sign that this public house was going to be closed. It closed literally overnight, having been sold through a commercial deal to Lidl supermarket, with no notice given to anyone. Lidl UK now proposes to demolish the public house and erect a non-descript supermarket on the site. It is reprehensible that this pattern of conduct by Enterprise Inns seems to be designed to circumvent the Government’s work to give greater protection to public houses. The Government have taken important steps, by creating the ability to list places such as the Porcupine as assets of community value and by giving greater protections in the national planning policy framework.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the campaign that he is running with the local community. As he knows, the Porcupine in Mottingham village is just across the road from my constituency, so my constituents are concerned, too. He has the full support of those who are trying to save the Dutch House pub in my constituency. This is very much about a local community coming together to save both community assets. Does he agree that this case is a test for the NPPF? We should be listening to local people, as against huge businesses such as McDonald’s, Lidl and Enterprise Inns.
Robert Neill
I am grateful to hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I welcome his support for the campaign, and I agree.
Enterprise Inns has a debt of £296 million and is running down its estate to pay it off. It does not seem to be interested in running its pubs, as they can be run, as going concerns. The community in Mottingham was denied the opportunity to make an application to have the Porcupine listed as an asset of community value in advance, because it was given no notice. By the time the pub closed, it had already changed hands and Lidl had already moved in and boarded it up. Ironically, it did so with a hoarding that was beyond the size permitted under the planning regulations—a breach of development control, which says something about Lidl’s attitude. When my hon. Friend the Minister responds, I should be grateful if he considered what more we might do about the behaviour of Enterprise Inns in seeking to circumvent the legislation that the House put in place to protect such assets.
Greg Mulholland
The all-party save the pub group is entirely behind my hon. Friend’s community campaign and will offer him any support we can. The simple answer—I hope we will hear this from the Minister—is twofold. First, as my hon. Friend will know, the great news is that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is consulting on finally dealing with the property scam that is the pubco model, which includes Enterprise Inns. I hope that we will hear later this year that that will be dealt with. Secondly, I hope that we will start to get it through to the community pubs Minister—my hon. Friend and I had debates when he used to be the community pubs Minister—that although the provisions in the Localism Act 2011 are positive, we cannot accept a planning framework that allows such behaviour. We must have a change, so that pubs cannot become supermarkets behind communities’ backs and without any consultation with those communities. That cannot be right.
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman would almost have had time to consume a pint in the course of his intervention.
Robert Neill
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I understand my hon. Friend’s point, and I am grateful to him for his intervention. You will know of the importance that all communities attach to their local public house, Mr Speaker, and this behaviour is particularly reprehensible. It has denied people the opportunity to step in, unlike what has happened at other places nearby, such as the Baring Hall public house near Grove Park station, where notice was given and the community was able to get the asset listed. That opportunity was denied in the case of the Porcupine as a result of the underhand behaviour of Enterprise Inns.
The situation has been made worse by the behaviour of Lidl. It is becoming apparent that the company’s business model is one of acquiring public house sites and turning them into supermarkets in a secretive and predatory fashion—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) says that this is about collusion, and I have to say that a lot of people in Mottingham would agree.
As I have said, the situation has been made worse by Lidl’s behaviour. Representatives of the company came to a public meeting organised by the Mottingham residents association and, to put it charitably, gave misleading information about the status of the planning application. They claimed that they already had permission to demolish the public house, when in fact they had not even made an application. Since then, although they claim that they wish to consult the community, they have done no more than board up the public house. They want to demolish it so that, in effect, the pass will have been sold and it will be impossible to rebuild a pub on the site, but I am pleased to say that Bromley council will have to consider a section 31 application. I am sure that it will deal with such an application in an appropriate fashion. My hon. Friend the Minister cannot prejudge planning cases, but I would simply observe that I believe that there are very strong planning grounds for deciding that this is not an appropriate place for a supermarket.
Lidl’s poor behaviour did not stop there, however. Until I secured this debate—as well as earning a rebuke from you, Mr Speaker, for making an intervention on the matter at business questions that was perhaps a little less crisp than I try to be—Lidl had refused to engage at senior level with me or any other elected representative. Lidl is a privately owned, German-based company, and it is now buying up pubs around London and turning them into supermarkets. Ironically, there is a Lidl just 10 minutes away from this site, in Eltham, as well as branches of Marks & Spencer, the Co-op and Sainsbury’s within easy reach of it.
I find it extraordinary that, having misled residents over the status of the application, Lidl took no steps to correct that. It put in an application, then forgot to pay the fee for about seven days, which says something about the company. When I sought a meeting with a Lidl board director, the company refused to give my office the names of its directors. We had to go to Companies House to find out who they were. It refused to give me the names, and refused to meet me until it heard about the publicity generated by this debate. That is a contemptuous way in which to treat the public.
There are two messages for people in all this. First, they should know how Lidl is behaving in this case. Secondly, the Campaign for Real Ale is actively promoting its “List your Local” campaign, and my message to anyone with a pub owned by Enterprise Inns in their community is that they should get it listed as an asset of community value now, because they cannot trust Enterprise Inns not to sell it from under them without telling them. That is an unsatisfactory state of affairs. As things are, a demolition application has now been submitted and will have to be considered by Bromley council. I am happy that it will take whatever steps are appropriate, but this case demonstrates an attitude that is damaging for the community in that area.
This is not the only occasion on which Lidl has behaved in this way. In Warlingham, it destroyed the former Good Companions public house. It knocked it down, but it has yet to submit an application to redevelop the site. It demolished a former police station in Dartford as soon as it acquired it, and the residents of Dartford have had to live with a derelict site for the subsequent 15 months. That is predatory behaviour. It is unacceptable and unbecoming of a public company. I hope that the directors on the board of Lidl will realise the reputational damage that their conduct is doing. I say that more in hope than in expectation, but we can at least use the engine of publicity to flag up their behaviour and that of Enterprise Inns. The Minister might be aware that an application has now been submitted for the Porcupine public house to be listed as an asset of community value, and I hope that it will give it some protection in due course.
Clive Efford
The hon. Gentleman is generous in giving way to me again. My constituents added their names to that application and were told that because they lived in neither the ward nor the borough, they could not have their application registered as an asset, despite the fact that it is happening in the middle of their village, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out. They are very disappointed and asked me to express their view here tonight.
Robert Neill
I understand that, and it is an issue that we may need to think about, particularly given that the local authority boundaries in some urban areas do not necessarily follow the community ties with an area. I hope that even though Bromley council is not statutorily obliged to do so, it will none the less be aware of the strength of feeling from across the other side of Mottingham.
The other option is to consider an article 4 direction, and I understand that an application to Bromley council for such a direction has been made. The one thing that we need to bear in mind is that there is sometimes a tendency for owners of properties that are subject to an article 4 direction to make excessive claims on compensation in an endeavour to deter local authorities from using the article 4 powers. That happened with the Baring Hall hotel in Grove park, where I understand a claim for compensation of about £1 million was initially made, but has now been significantly reduced. There is, of course, an onus on the owner who seeks compensation for article 4 actually to prove loss. I wonder whether the Minister can say more about the guidance that we can give to local authorities, so that they are not intimidated against using article 4 directions by the behaviour of large, well-funded commercial organisations.
I hope that I have now had the chance to ventilate on a subject that is hugely important to my constituents. I end by saying that the porcupine is a seemingly harmless animal until provoked. Well, the residents of Mottingham have been thoroughly and justifiably provoked by the threat to their Porcupine. I hope that this debate has given us the chance to flag up what amounts to troubling behaviour not just for residents of Mottingham, but for anyone concerned about protecting valued local pubs across the country.