Landlords not to blame

A recent front-page article highlighte

Marstons (formerly Banks's) Brewery apparently felt it necessary to make a statement to the effect that these days, for some reason, people were not being attracted to the licensed trade, as though this was one of the great unsolved mysteries of the 21st Century.

Breweries all over the country, including Marstons, know perfectly well what the problem is - their own greed. All other excuses they trot out, such as changing drinking habits, cheap beer in supermarkets (their own fault) etc, are merely peripheral influences.

The fact is that breweries now will not allow people to make a good living from running a pub. It has been happening up and down the country for years. The more successful tenants become, the more they are penalised by ever-increasing rents, until finally they are forced out and managers installed.

More profits for the brewery - that is until, as often happens, trade plummets because the managers chosen by the brewery are incompetent and quite unsuitable for the job.

It can happen that the once-successful pub, several "managers" later and with the trade at rock bottom, is offered as a tenancy, with the brewery quite disgracefully asking inexperienced people to make a considerable financial commitment to a business which by now has little chance of success.

If breweries were genuinely interested in pubs being the successful social institutions they once were, they would take a good, hard look at themselves and allow competent licensees to earn the sort of rewards their industry and flair entitles them to.

J Walker, Longfellow Road, Dudley.