01-Feb-2011
Business Link East - Reversing the decline of rural services through an innovative partnership placing pubs at the hub of local communities
Rising to the challenge of declining rural services, Business Link, Pub is the Hub, Suffolk County Council and the East of England Development Agency joined forces in an innovative partnership to provide tangible, targeted and timely support to rural pubs and services. Their successful campaign could now act as a nationwide template.
A pioneering partnership, inspired through a creative Business Link idea of successfully
supporting hard-hit rural communities and pubs, is provoking keen interest nationwide. Business Link provides expert business advice and distributes the East of England Development Agency’s Rural Pubs Support Grant. Pub is the Hub has a voluntary network of professional on-trade advisers, all experts at helping pubs and communities diversify.
Suffolk County Council invests heavily in rural services, providing matched grant funding for capital projects, economic development specialists and rural retail advisers. Business Link joined these and other key partners together to launch the award-winning Open forBusiness campaign. And already vital support has been given to enable more than 220 pubs to strengthen their place in local communities as hubs for rural services provision.
“It was over three years ago when we first started to seek potential solutions to the increasing number of rural pub closures,” explains Business Link Partnership Director for Regional Rural Affairs, Edwin Jones. “The decline of the village pub was a worrying sign that the wider battle for rural services and infrastructure was not going well, and we started to line up potential delivery partners that could complement our campaign to distribute the Rural Pubs Support Grant.”
According to John Longden, Chief Executive of for Pub is the Hub, the issue had
been initiated by HRH The Prince of Wales and, at Prince Charles’ instigation,
Pub is the Hub was created in 2001. It is a not-for-profit voluntary organisation
funded by donations. “Our role is to help the provision and retention of services
for communities in rural areas,” says John. “We do this by supporting good
licensees wishing to diversify their business into providing other services with free
advice and by a mentoring network of voluntary advisers.”
The third partner, Suffolk County Council, has a strong history of economic
support for rural areas. Its Business Development Manager Yvonne Moores
explains: “Our biggest rural services challenge in recent years has been the closure of village Post Offices and village pubs. In response we developed our grant
scheme to provide matched funding for capital expenditure by the ex-Post offices, rural pubs and surviving Post Offices to help them develop into alternative retail and services outlets, ensuring sustainability.” Yvonne’s colleague, Economic Development
Project Officer Dawn Turpin adds: “The Rural Economy Scheme, provided capital that enabled former village Post Offices to refit, and also enabled pubs to offer a Post Office service where the village Post Office had been closed.”
Creating an integrated rural support package
As Edwin explains, the partner organisations provide a highly complementary support framework, with Business Link’s infrastructure offering a coordinating role and combining an expert ‘publicity machine’ and delivery mechanism. “Our marketing team is highly effective at targeting small businesses, like pubs, and Business Link
advisers are out visiting business premises and networking with small business owners every day.”
The Open for Business campaign leaflet provided rural pub businesses with details of how they could access help and advice, and a media campaign also publicised the support available via local radio, newspapers and partner organisations – among these were brewery websites, the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) and the British Institute of Innkeeping.
Yvonne adds: “Business Link’s Rural Pub Support Grant, designed for pubs to invest in businessgrowth ventures like marketing, complemented Suffolk County Council’s matched funding grant for capital projects. Business Link advisers first visited each pub to evaluate the potential of their business plans, provide advice, draw up an action plan and check eligibility for funding. Then Suffolk County Council’s rural retail specialists and the on-trade experts from Pub is the Hub were
referred to the publican, according to need. We found that with some pubs the advice had an even greater impact than the funding.” Pubs would use the matched capital grants from Suffolk County Council to make necessary alterations to widen their services, while EEDA’s grants of up to £1,500 were used to fund marketing activities to promote the new services.
In John’s view, much of the effectiveness of the campaign results from the range of expertise available to licensees and communities and the ability to achieve a great deal with relatively small sums. “The largest project was £30,000, but the average was around £4,000. EEDA’s funding was up to £1,500, which proved more than sufficient to fund a highly successful, multi-channel marketing campaign. The success these grants helped leverage shows you don’t need much money to make big things happen!”
In the News
23-Mar-2012
Pub is The Hub Announces £1.3m Local Services Initiative for Welsh Pubs
Alun Davies, Deputy Minister for Agriculture, Food, Fisheries and European Programmes announced yesterday a £1.3m package of support for local services in rural pubs in Wales through a joint co-operation initiative between Pub is The Hub and Cadwyn Clwyd (the Regional Development Agency for Denbighshire and Flintshire).
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06-Mar-2012
Off to a great start in Lincolnshire
Seventeen pubs expressed their interest in diversification schemes at the Lincolnshire launch of Local Community Services Champions this week.
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25-Jan-2012
Free computer skills training in pubs
Pub is The Hub has joined forces with Lancashire County Council in their Local Community Services Champions initiative to provide free computer classes to absolute beginners.
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