Our Campaigning priorities
Preventing the Loss of Viable and Valued Pubs
We pursue this by:
- Campaigning to strengthen the national policies and legislation (especially planning
legislation) that help protect pubs.
- Supporting campaigns to protect individual pubs from closure or unwanted changes by providing
advice and guidance (see Saving Your Pub
and Pub Saving Award).
- Encouraging Councils to adopt strong local planning policies protective of pubs and to then
implement those policies effectively.
- Pursuing additional protection for important historic pub interiors, particularly through
statutory listing (see Historic Pub Interiors).
- Encouraging and supporting communities to take pubs into their own ownership (see Community Owned and Community Run Pubs).
- Seeking to ensure that the Pubs Code is implemented in ways that increase the security and
profitability of pub tenancies (see Pubs Code and
Adjudicator).
Promoting Pubs as Places to Enjoy the Benefits of
Moderate Social
Drinking and Other Social Activities
We pursue this by:
- Initiatives aimed at encouraging more people to visit more pubs more often.
- Provision of accurate and comprehensive information about individual pubs.
- Increasing knowledge and appreciation of pubs and how they operate.
- Collecting and maintaining key data about pubs.
- Highlighting the culture, history and social contributions of pubs as part of UK heritage (see
Pubs and Wellbeing).
- Celebrating excellence in pub design (see Outstanding
Conversions and Restorations and Pub
Design Award).
- Working with industry stakeholders to increase activity aimed at encouraging pub going.
Lobbying for a Tax Regime that Favours the Drinking of Beer,
Cider and Perry on Licensed Premises
We pursue this by campaigning to convince decision makers that such a regime is needed and that the
changes necessary to implement it should be made.
Our vision for pubs
In order to thrive, pubs need to deliver what customers actually want. After carrying out market research, we
have produced our Vision for Pubs. This identifies
the key services that most pub-goers look for and
which, therefore, we encourage pub owners to provide.
Definition of a pub
Currently, there is no legal definition of a pub. This creates particular problems in the planning arena where
the boundaries between pubs, restaurants and hotels often become blurred. Given the added protection enjoyed by
pubs, it is important that confusion is avoided and so we are campaigning for a legal definition to be
introduced. In the meantime, we have produced our own pub definition (see CAMRA’s
Definition of Pubs, Clubs, and
other licensed premises).
Free houses
We define a free house as a single licensed premises where the licensee is wholly and at all times free to
purchase their stock of alcoholic beverages from whomsoever they choose without restriction, financial or
otherwise.
Planning
We campaign for changes to the planning system that will give more protection to community pubs and, over the
years, much progress has been made. The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), first published in 2012,
requires planning authorities to guard against the unnecessary loss of valued community facilities like pubs. In
2017, it became necessary, in England, to obtain planning permission for any change of use or demolition of a
pub and we are now campaigning for the same levels of protection to be introduced by the devolved governments
(in Scotland, change of use has long needed planning permission but demolition is still ‘permitted development’)
Local Authority Plans should recognise pubs as essential social and community amenities and should include
protective policies to guard against their loss, and facilitate diversification to provide essential services,
especially where the pub is the last remaining in the local community. Many Local Plans have been strengthened
in recent years to bring them into line with the NPPF but much remains to be done.
We believe that planning law and planning policy should require all new large-scale developments to contain at
least one pub and one shop.
We support the Agent of Change principle and the writing of it into all appropriate planning legislation and
planning policies. This has now happened with the NPPF and means, for instance, that occupiers of new
developments are limited in the extent to which they can complain about activities at pre-existing developments,
like pubs.
We believe that all applications for the changes of pub names should be subject to planning permission
Licensing
We support changes to the licensing system to reinforce the role of pubs as community facilities that supervise
the responsible consumption of alcohol. This should be aimed at avoiding excessive consumption and seek to
increase the proportion of alcohol consumed in a controlled environment.
Pubs should not be de-licensed until they have been offered for sale with licence for a reasonable period and at
a reasonable price.
We believe accompanied children should be allowed in pubs provided suitable facilities are available. There
should be no requirement in law that children should have to take a meal to use the premises, or to leave by a
given time before the pub closes. The emphasis should be on the licensee’s decision whether to admit children,
and the responsible adult's judgement whether the pub is suitable for the child.
Licensees should be free to open any hours that they choose. Licensing authorities acting on complaints should
have powers to control the opening hours of premises causing proven public nuisance or disorder.
We oppose clustering late night licences aimed at young people: instead, the aim should be to spread late
licences across all types of public houses in all parts of the licensing area. We campaign against the
introduction of Late Night Levies by licensing authorities.
