Residents in Radford, Nottingham, are rallying to save The Plough Inn, an award-winning pub that closed last month due to rising costs. The pub’s operators blamed tax hikes, including Labour’s increase in National Insurance for employers and the minimum wage, for making the business unviable, with losses of £1,000 a week. The site is now on the market for £20,000 a year.
Locals have launched a campaign to grant the pub Asset of Community Value (ACV) status, which would require any sale to be flagged and give them six months to mount a rival bid. CAMRA secretary Andrew Ludlow said: “We have received a number of requests from locals who feel strongly that the pub is part of the local community and its loss would detrimentally impact on local residents.”
The Plough Inn, built in the 1920s, won Nottingham CAMRA’s Mild Trail Best Pint for five consecutive years and was valued for its “village pub” feel despite its inner-city location. However, former operator Richard Whittaker of Nottingham Brewery noted that online support did not translate into custom: “When the pub closed, we had 300 interactions on Facebook, and our comment would be: ‘If every one of them had gone in the pub and bought a pint, we’d still be operating’.”
Official figures show over 200 pubs closed in England and Wales in the six months to August, with more than 2,283 lost since 2020. Labour’s target of 1.5 million new homes by the end of Parliament has raised fears that more pubs will be converted into housing, as seen with The Mill in nearby Basford.
