Clive Efford
Main Page: Clive Efford (Labour - Eltham)
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.
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.