Your Pub Is The Hub

Many of AC Services clients are at the heart of their communities whether they are cafes, restaurants or hotels. They are the place to go for a treat or a simple meal.

Pubs are known for fulfilling that function. They grew from places to drink and socialise when beer was safer to drink than water and more nutritious than the regular loaf. Every village had pubs. Yes, often the plural because one was never enough. Each was known for a different group of locals who would pop in for a pint after work or at the weekend.

The Changing Role of Pubs

Pubs have changed dramatically over the last fifty years. Not only in what they serve but who they serve it to. Drink driving laws reduced the ability to stop in on the way home to catch up with local and national news. While new drinks came into fashion and out again.

The pub lunch became the pub feast and the meal more important than the drink as a way to survive and create the profit margins. With continuing pub closures, the sense of community was ripped out of many villages, towns and even cities. But there is now some opportunity to protect some pubs by putting them back at the heart of communities.

Pub is the Hub

The Department for Business and Trade has recently committed £440,000 to help Pub is The Hub deliver over 40 projects including village stores, community cafes, allotments and play areas in pubs across the country. This funding is aimed to help support local jobs and opportunities whilst increasing community cohesion.

What’s on offer is access to a small cash grant from a simple expression of interest form. Your starting point could be what you have already or how you might repurpose or expand. It’s also worthwhile talking to your local council to see what additional support they may be able to provide. This might include warm spaces funding as we enter the winter months.

Are you a pub that wants to diversify your activities to become again the centre of your community? Then have a look at their website and fill out this Expression of Interest Form.

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