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WHITE SWAN PUB (p.7 - Closed, just to add to the happy vibe)

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Comments

  • Off_it
    Off_it Posts: 28,913
    boggzy said:
    Arseholes.
    Charlton Champion and @Curb_It? That's harsh!
  • LenGlover
    LenGlover Posts: 31,671
    My 8 year old grandson would have enough common sense to realise that building a residential house in the back garden of a pub is a stupid idea for the enjoyment of both facilities by residents and customers alike.

    I guess money talks. 
  • AFKABartram
    AFKABartram Posts: 57,882
    Well having just read the Big Match Thread, let’s hope Max Wall buys it 
  • anyone familiar with pub rentals? Suspect Mendoza are continuing to take the piss here.

    https://charltonchampion.co.uk/2021/01/13/fancy-taking-over-the-white-swan-itll-cost-you-40000-a-year/
  • MrLargo
    MrLargo Posts: 7,993
    anyone familiar with pub rentals? Suspect Mendoza are continuing to take the piss here.

    https://charltonchampion.co.uk/2021/01/13/fancy-taking-over-the-white-swan-itll-cost-you-40000-a-year/
    "Last March, Mendoza told The Charlton Champion it was committed to keeping the building as a pub.

    According to Jenkins Law, £40,000/pa will also get you a shop unit in Earls Court, a Costa Coffee outlet in West Kensington, a former bank on the Streatham High Road, while the Old Justice pub, on the riverside at Bermondsey with lots of footfall, is on offer for just £32,000 per year."

    They've got no interest whatsoever in retaining it as a pub. Presume they want to just knock it down and build homes on it. At that rent, I guess it wouldn't even be attractive to Sainsburys or Tesco to put one of their mini stores in it.

  • MrLargo said:
    anyone familiar with pub rentals? Suspect Mendoza are continuing to take the piss here.

    https://charltonchampion.co.uk/2021/01/13/fancy-taking-over-the-white-swan-itll-cost-you-40000-a-year/
    "Last March, Mendoza told The Charlton Champion it was committed to keeping the building as a pub.

    According to Jenkins Law, £40,000/pa will also get you a shop unit in Earls Court, a Costa Coffee outlet in West Kensington, a former bank on the Streatham High Road, while the Old Justice pub, on the riverside at Bermondsey with lots of footfall, is on offer for just £32,000 per year."

    They've got no interest whatsoever in retaining it as a pub. Presume they want to just knock it down and build homes on it. At that rent, I guess it wouldn't even be attractive to Sainsburys or Tesco to put one of their mini stores in it.

    Interesting comment there about the old justice pub at 32k. I run passed it regularly and I always think what I would do to turn it around. Whilst it’s in a sort of residential area, the local residents alone wouldn’t keep it going. It’s also by the Thames but kinda set back enough to not be on the Thames, unlike it’s neighbours the Mayflower and the Angel. They also tried it as a Korean bbq but that failed so it clearly suffers from an identity crisis. Unfortunately, it may be one of those old boozers that no longer has a place in the community due to changed demographics and the modern world we live in.
  • Rob7Lee
    Rob7Lee Posts: 9,616
    I don't think anyone will take it on at £40k, it wasn't profitable before and the landlord wasn't paying £40k. Me being suspicious makes me think they don't actually want anyone to take it on, easier to get planning to covert then heh?

    There sadly just didn't seem to be the call for two pubs there.
  • MrLargo
    MrLargo Posts: 7,993
    Rob7Lee said:


    There sadly just didn't seem to be the call for two pubs there.
    I think there was though, and I think The White Swan was the better of the two. It's not closed down because it was struggling, it's closed because the landlord's greedy and they'd have to be packed out 7 nights a week with everyone paying £7 a pint to be viable with rent at that level.
  • Oggy Red
    Oggy Red Posts: 44,962
    Rob7Lee said:
    I don't think anyone will take it on at £40k, it wasn't profitable before and the landlord wasn't paying £40k. Me being suspicious makes me think they don't actually want anyone to take it on, easier to get planning to covert then heh?

    There sadly just didn't seem to be the call for two pubs there.
    Sadly, this is what pubcos and other pub property landlords are aiming for these days.
    They are just barely disguised property development companies.

    It's the land and sometimes the building that is the valuable asset, and not the business after it's been intentionally run into the ground, closed and the land value released.


  • Crusty54
    Crusty54 Posts: 3,237
    It would help if the building got listed. This might make Mendoza set a more realistic rent.

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  • Crusty54 said:
    It would help if the building got listed. This might make Mendoza set a more realistic rent.
    Except the costs of running, insuring a listed building are high, so it's not always the best answer unfortunately...
  • Oggy Red
    Oggy Red Posts: 44,962
    Crusty54 said:
    It would help if the building got listed. This might make Mendoza set a more realistic rent.
    Except the costs of running, insuring a listed building are high, so it's not always the best answer unfortunately...

    Quite possibly the type of thing that could happen in future ....... is the Swan gets converted into flats and the garden built on. £££££££££££

    And say, the chip shop across the road becomes the micro pub.

    Maybe that's the future of pubs and the concept of a 'local' run on a small budget ....... ?


  • Oggy Red said:
    Crusty54 said:
    It would help if the building got listed. This might make Mendoza set a more realistic rent.
    Except the costs of running, insuring a listed building are high, so it's not always the best answer unfortunately...

    Quite possibly the type of thing that could happen in future ....... is the Swan gets converted into flats and the garden built on. £££££££££££

    And say, the chip shop across the road becomes the micro pub.

    Maybe that's the future of pubs and the concept of a 'local' run on a small budget ....... ?


    Similar to the way cafe/bars exist in a lot of Europe. Small footprint, owner fully hands on, lots of them. 
  • 6 months “actively marketed” with no interest gives the freeholder strong lever with local authority for change of use. For change of use read redevelop as residential. Give it another year and it will be ‘modern attractive apartments in feature property’ making £40k pa rent look like chicken feed. 
  • Curb_It
    Curb_It Posts: 21,236
    And that was their plan all along.  Absolute arseholes.  
  • Oggy Red
    Oggy Red Posts: 44,962
    Curb_It said:
    And that was their plan all along.  Absolute arseholes.  
    Exactly. It's all about big bucks, making the biggest profit they can.

    The sham is ....... they are masquerading as a pub landlord, when they are really a property development company.
    And with the loss of the amenity, the community pays the price.


  • I’m completely ignorant of such things but can’t Greenwich Council get involved here ? Seems pretty obvious that this is a ploy by the owners to avoid having it used as a pub to drive through residential use. The Swan is genuinely an asset of community value in a real London village setting. Perhaps telling the owners that planning for housing would not be viewed favourably unless a genuine attempt to sell the lease at true market value was attempted. 
  • I’m completely ignorant of such things but can’t Greenwich Council get involved here ? Seems pretty obvious that this is a ploy by the owners to avoid having it used as a pub to drive through residential use. The Swan is genuinely an asset of community value in a real London village setting. Perhaps telling the owners that planning for housing would not be viewed favourably unless a genuine attempt to sell the lease at true market value was attempted. 
    You mistake LB Greenwich as having the remotest concern for community and you forget their slavish devotion to the profitability of their preferred cabal of property developers.  If the building's listed, the best anyone can hope for is that the exterior appearance is broadly preserved.  If Mendoza don't get what they want as quickly as they'd like stand by for some serious structural issue to materialise in the fabric of the building, requiring 'tragic, unavoidable' demolition.
  • EastTerrace
    EastTerrace Posts: 3,961
    edited January 2021
    There was a pub near where I work near Brook Green called the Old Parrs Head.

    Always busy with office people and locals. Can’t remember the specifics but the landlord had to leave and Punch Taverns (I think) put the rent up astronomically for the same reasons. Now flats.

    The Government won’t protect pubs from this as their mates work for the pubcos or they have shares in them.
    The Council don’t want the aggro of people drinking and want to build more and more homes. Win win for them.

    Meanwhile our country becomes one that stays indoors more year by year.
    It’s okay just put Netflix on and chat on a ‘kin forum.
  • There was a pub near where I work near Brook Green called the Old Parrs Head.

    Always busy with office people and locals. Can’t remember the specifics but the landlord had to leave and Punch Taverns (I think) put the rent up astronomically for the same reasons. Now flats.

    The Government won’t protect pubs from this as their mates work for the pubcos or they have shares in them.
    The Council don’t want the aggro of people drinking and want to build more and more homes. Win win for them.

    Meanwhile our country becomes one that stays indoors more year by year.
    It’s okay just put Netflix on and chat on a ‘kin forum.
    Punch are renowned for this and are absolute ✊🏻💦

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  • Oggy Red
    Oggy Red Posts: 44,962
    There was a pub near where I work near Brook Green called the Old Parrs Head.

    Always busy with office people and locals. Can’t remember the specifics but the landlord had to leave and Punch Taverns (I think) put the rent up astronomically for the same reasons. Now flats.

    The Government won’t protect pubs from this as their mates work for the pubcos or they have shares in them.
    The Council don’t want the aggro of people drinking and want to build more and more homes. Win win for them.

    Meanwhile our country becomes one that stays indoors more year by year.
    It’s okay just put Netflix on and chat on a ‘kin forum.
    Punch are renowned for this and are absolute ✊🏻💦
    Punch Taverns have done exactly this to a pub in my village.
    What was once a thriving community pub run into the ground.

    They are now trying to do the same thing with another pub in our village.
    Punch decided to promote and invest in this pub, refurbishing  and keeping rent low for the next tenant - while driving much higher rent and totally neglecting the other.

    Now they've sold the 1st pub for conversion into 3 flats, they've raised the rent astronomically at the other.
    No incoming tenant will be able to make a profit. Just watch the same old process be re-enacted.

    A while back, in order to prevent a monopoly of same brewery tied-house pubs in the same locality, the government of the day encouraged breweries to sell to the newly formed pubcos. Well in my village, how come the pubco ended up having the monopoly?

    These pubcos are poison to the pub trade.


  • There was a pub near where I work near Brook Green called the Old Parrs Head.

    Always busy with office people and locals. Can’t remember the specifics but the landlord had to leave and Punch Taverns (I think) put the rent up astronomically for the same reasons. Now flats.

    The Government won’t protect pubs from this as their mates work for the pubcos or they have shares in them.
    The Council don’t want the aggro of people drinking and want to build more and more homes. Win win for them.

    Meanwhile our country becomes one that stays indoors more year by year.
    It’s okay just put Netflix on and chat on a ‘kin forum.
    Blokes, ordinary blokes in many cases used to pop into the pub for a couple of pints on the way home from work. Got home with dinner on the table. Life’s not like that anymore.
    Things have changed, people have changed. Now of course this still goes on but not in the numbers it used to. Same with the Sunday lunchtime drink. Used to be mainly blokes for a couple of hours. Not the same anymore these days. Pubs and the clientele are different. That’s without taking into account the cost of a pint. What’s an average these days for a pint ? £5 ? People can’t do it financially and because of her indoors. Can’t see the demise of pubs ending. Bloody tragedy. 
  • InspectorSands
    InspectorSands Posts: 5,192
    A new group has come forward to try to turn the Swan into a pub and music/arts venue: 


  • AFKABartram
    AFKABartram Posts: 57,882
    Fingers crossed 
  • Off_it
    Off_it Posts: 28,913
    I'm all for saving pubs ..... but when I hear about a "music and arts venue" I remember what they they did to the Black Horse and Harrow in Catford.


  • KBslittlesis
    KBslittlesis Posts: 8,652
    That looks a bit like what they’ve done to the Bear & Ragged Staff in Crayford 😳🫣
  • AFKABartram
    AFKABartram Posts: 57,882
    blimey, looks more like a soft play cafe!
  • Wellred
    Wellred Posts: 1,118
    I live just outside of the village & have had load's of good music nights in there I really hope they can make a go of it 

  • SoundAsa£
    SoundAsa£ Posts: 22,499
    blimey, looks more like a soft play cafe!
    Still, it’s better than it closing altogether Bart.
  • Neil_Heaney
    Neil_Heaney Posts: 370
    There's a questionnaire in that article which they're going to use to show that people back the plan for restoring the pub. Worth filling out for that reason alone:

    https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1kmk-QqL-ptye3sVLJDrYRwCPAtbJA57yf2BzDrLg6Dk/viewform?edit_requested=true