Don’t let council killjoys destroy London’s pubs
Hounslow council has caused outrage by ordering three Chiswick pubs to remove their riverside tables. London doesn’t have to be this way, says Jack Emsley
Sitting by the Thames with a pint on a sunny afternoon is one of the great joys of living in London. Our city is renowned for its pub culture, from the post work drinks spilling out into the street, the beer gardens full of hopeful football fans, or the crowded benches of riverside pubs. But in recent years, this crucial part of what makes London fun has come under serious threat.
Rising costs have played a part, from rents to the wholesale cost of beer. The government’s constant anti-hospitality policies have also caused huge damage, particularly the disastrous hike in national insurance and changes to business rates.
Perhaps one of the single biggest threats faced by these classic British institutions, though, comes from our local authorities and the way they wield increasingly draconian licensing laws.
Last week, my local community in Chiswick hit the national headlines after three pubs were ordered to remove their riverside tables following an intervention from a newly elected Green Councillor. The tables had been there for decades, and the pubs themselves have stood in that spot for centuries – legend has it one of them even sheltered Oliver Cromwell in the early days of the English Civil War.
Hundreds of years of riverside drinking was gone overnight. Whilst rising costs and central government taxes certainly weren’t helping, it was an over-zealous councillor (who happens to live very near to the pubs), aided by the enforcement-happy Labour-led Hounslow Council, which finally broke the chain of Thameside pints.
Hospitality in crisis
Thankfully a combination of local outcry, national media attention and a swift counter-operation by Conservative councillors has led to a U-turn. Tables and chairs can return to the riverside while the council continues its licensing investigation. The pubs may still face licensing issues depending on the outcome of new applications, but in the meantime Chiswick drinkers can return to the Thames path.
The whole debacle was entirely avoidable, but exposes a deeper issue facing our city’s pubs and hospitality venues. It will have escaped nobody’s notice that London’s nightlife has taken a nosedive over the past decade. Bars and pubs are closing at a record rate, whilst finding a drinking spot after 11pm is becoming increasingly difficult. A once 24-hour city is fast becoming a ghost town shortly after the sun goes down.
The recent decision by the Soho Society to object to any new applications for bars and restaurants in the area, and to campaign for an effective 11pm curfew in the very heart of the West End, exemplifies the problem. The beacon of London’s culture is being systematically extinguished by local killjoys who have decided they would rather the city they moved to resembled a sleepy countryside hamlet.
This bizarre war being waged against hospitality is being enabled by scrooge-like local authority enforcement teams. Rather than recognise the benefits of London’s pub culture, both to community cohesion and the local economy, many local councils are content to side with the vocal minority who raise objections.
Whilst the decline of pub culture seems to have momentum, it doesn’t have to be inevitable. It will take bold, unashamedly pro-business and pro-fun policies, but we can get our city back on track. Councillors should look to the example set by the new administration in Wandsworth, who have brought back al fresco dining in Northcote Road. They should rekindle the post-Covid movement to make pavement licenses permanent, and generally rebalance their licensing regimes to favour our pubs and bars over a vocal NIMBY minority.
The real threat to our city’s pub culture is one that fellow London councillors have real influence over. Over the next four year term, each of us can either be remembered as a councillor who tried to kill off our hospitality industry, or one who made a stand to save it.
Jack Emsley is a Conservative councillor in West London