Of course valueless pubs should be converted

Of course it’s possible to think that a pub has a value over and above some mere financial consideration. A community hub and all that. But the joy of that mere financial consideration is that it already encompasses all those other values - like community hub and all that. If someone’s not able to charge enough to keep a pub open then the community - and anyone else for that matter - does not value the pub at more than the cost of having a pub. Thus this is a step in the right direction:

Thousands of pubs could be turned into flats and takeaways if new Labour planning proposals are approved, a campaign group has claimed. The Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) has accused ministers of drafting new rules that could put pubs at risk from “greedy” developers. Current planning regulations encourage councils to protect pubs unless they are not wanted by a local community. These rules state that local authorities should “guard against the unnecessary loss of valued facilities” when considering applications from developers who want to turn them into homes or shops. But a proposed amendment would see the safeguard limited to only the last pub in a village or town.

Camra is demanding that pubs not be converted to something of greater use - housing, a shop - because. Well, because, that’s why, because. At which point Camra gets told to go pound sand.

Camra is also ignoring basic economics because of course they are:

Labour launches ‘devastating’ new attack on pubs. New planning rules could put thousands of locals at risk from ‘greedy’ developers, campaign group warns

We have an excess of pubs in this country. As to why, well, the smoking ban, general changes in habits, the taxation of beer, higher minimum wages, national insurance, we can all identify potential causes. One close to our own hearts is that pub culture is different from restaurant/cafe culture and the insistence that the former turn into the latter is, erm, turning the British off. On the grounds that pub culture is British and cafe isn’t. We’re willing to be thought of as a minority in that view. But we do have an excess of pubs - that’s why so many are going bust, closing and available to be converted into housing and shops.

So - and Camra and others take note - if we reduce the supply of pubs then those that remain will gain more traffic. Will become, once again, thriving community hubs packed with, well, the community. Because this is what happens when you reduce the supply of something, that supply that remains becomes better used given demand. It is precisely by converting thousands of pubs that the remainder of the estate becomes profitable.

But then we British do seem not to think rationally about pubs. In the ancestral stomping grounds of one of us a village used exactly this law to “save” the local pub from conversion. Which now costs the villagers a fortune to keep open as, having been saved, they still don’t use the pub enough for it to cover its costs. That very same village also opposes some housebuilding just on the town side (and so not green belt restricted land) of the village on the grounds that the extra people would affect their village and, possibly, come drink in the pub and so make it profitable again. The British, eh?

If a pub has no value as a pub - something proven by it losing money as a pub - of course it should be converted. For that’s the very definition of wealth creation, moving an asset from a lower to a higher valued use.

Tim Worstall