What about, buying a failing pub and converting it into space for serviced offices, or some other form of commercial property.
The number of bar and pub firms going out of business in the first three months of the year was more than double the number in the same period last year, as the trade struggled to compete with cheap alcohol sales in supermarkets.
A total of 23 companies from the drinks sector went bust in the first quarter, compared with 11 over the same period of 2010, a rise of 109%. It brought the total number of bar, pub and nightclub bankruptcies over the past 12 months to 87.
Among the companies that have run into problems recently, is the London Town pubs group, which owns 44 pubs and went into administration in February. The sector has also seen some of its biggest names, such as Punch Taverns, Marstons and Greene King, forced into major cash-raising exercises.
The position of many pubs and clubs is generally accepted to have been made worse by the smoking ban and a battle for sales with supermarkets.
Anthony Cork, director of Wilkins Kennedy, a company which produces statistics on the drinks trade, believes pubs continue to suffer ‘an intense competitive threat from the buying might of the big four supermarkets’…He went on, ‘the choice available in supermarkets is so extensive that pubs can only compete on that aspect by reshuffling their contracts with suppliers and that can be difficult.”
In the past, closed pubs had often been bought by property developers and turned into flats, but since the decline of the property market, pubs that had shut had less appeal to prospective buyers and had been left boarded up.
A spokesman for the BBPA (British Beer and Pub Association) said: ‘While some pubs have been bought by other people — usually property developers rather than new landlords — since the downturn, pubs have become a lot less attractive to developers.’
Estate agents said that pubs in villages, where local housing is in short supply, still made a compelling case for developers. Chris Coleman-Smith, head of auctions for Savills, said: ‘If it is in the back of beyond, where a pub might struggle for trade, it is probably better off as a residential or commercial property development, either a house or a few units.’
Converting a pub into a residential property is all well and good, but I have had personal experience trying to get pubs rezoned and it is nigh on impossible. So, try for commercial property rezoning, I believe it is a much better bet.
