The Chequers has recently struggled. It's owner has put in planning permission recently for a change of use, and this was not received well. My feeling is that once again, this is a case of use it or lose it. The local village didn't use the pub. It couldn't make money, the poor bloke just wanted to do something with his asset. I can hear all the screaming now.. "He deliberately ran it down...", "He just wants to have it as a private house.." All these comments may have some truth, maybe they don't. The arguments could go on forever. I know one thing though. Lets say the owner sold it as a pub, and lets, just for fun, assume the new owners turned it around and it became a popular village pub, that was frequented each weekend by zillions of people... Of course all the neighbours would be fine with it. There would be no comments over parking, noise etc. No one would complain or object to applications for live music licenses..... And the world is flat.
A pub with so few customers / noise / food smells etc is not going to make a profit. The building is a commercial asset worth, say, £500,000 (don't start on the valuation) To be a respectable business it needs to make a 10% return net. Say £50K pa. Add on direct costs like bar staff, rates, licenses,and other stuff needed to run a pub, another £100K, that means a £150K profit. Now on average, each pub in the UK took about £5000 a week in 2007 or about £250K pa at a GP margin of 40%, this would indicate £100K profit, so for our example a £50K pa loss. Not a goldmine.
I'm not a licensed trade expert so my figures above may be wildly out. If they are, please comment. My point is though that the Chequers is a business. It's not a social benefit. It needs make profit.
