WELCOME

2017 Branch Award winning pubs  Thanks to everyone who nominated pubs and with your help the branch decided on the following. East London and outright winner of POTY is Mirth, Marvel and Maud, 186 Hoe St E17 4QH. City POTY is Craft Beer Co. 82 Leather Lane EC1N 7TR Cider POTY is Cock Tavern 315, Mare St, E8 1EJ Community POTY is Ye Old Rose & Crown 53 Hoe St E17 4SA Club of the Year Leyton Orient Supprters Club Oliver Rd E10

Branch Events

JULY Sat 29 All day social at The Epping and Ongar Rail Ale Festival. North Weald Station, Station Rd, CM16 6BT, Discount on EOR travel tickets for card carrying CAMRA members, 65+ beers and 20 ciders. The festival runs from the 28-30th.  AUGUST Due to the Great British Beer Festival and Holidays no events are planned   SEPTEMBER Tue 5 7.30pm Pigs Ear Beer Festival Planning Meeting White Hart E1 4TP. Tue 12 8pm Branch Meeting, Leyton Technical, 265B High Rd, E10 5QN. Fri 22 8pm Social Leyton Orient Supporters Club Oliver Rd Leyton. This ale night will feature beers from Twickenham Brewery. Doors open 5pm Tue 26 7.30pm Pigs Ear Beer Festival Planning Meeting Rose & Crown E17 4SA  

NEWS

NEW LINK ADDED.

This is not a new site but I thought you may be interested in the Derelict London site for East London pubs. Local Solutions to National Problems The loophole of permitted development which allows pubs to be demolished or converted without planning consent continues to inflict damage to our communities. Those supporters of the status quo, including government ministers and the BBPA, point out that the biggest threat to tpubs in an overheating property market comes from residential conversion and not changed that can be implemented via permitted development. We agree, but since planning consent has always been required to turn a pub into houses or flats, the PD option is very often used as a stepping stone. Of course developers do not really want charity shops or estate agents in the pubs they have just over paid for, but because they can do it, we find that they will do it. The Admiral Mann in Holloway was turned into a fake bric a brac shop as was the Green Dragon in Enfield. The latter is now a mixed development of high end supermarket and luxury flats, a move which began with the erasure of pub use via the PD loophole. The Admiral Mann battles on. The same trick was tried at the King Harold in Leyton but eagle eyed pub hero Simon Purnell (@WFPubs) was quick to gather evidence of the so-called ‘charity shop’ and the said pub is now the hugely successful Leyton Star. One of the boldest and most successful hoodwinking exercises to date took place at the Central Hotel in East Ham, the famous ‘away’ fans pub when West Ham United still lived in Upton Park. The developer who snapped up the Central from Punch put in a scheme for several flats and new houses on the beer garden, with the servery converted to some unspecified retail function. Clearly this is a new mixed use development which required full planning consent yet officers in Newham Council advised us, wrongly, that their hands were tied as change of use from pub to shop was allowed under PD! Meanwhile supermarkets like the Co-Op, Morrisons, Nisa, CostCutter and others continue to aggressively target valued and cherished pubs, safe in the knowledge that Council planners will hide behind the PD rights scandal with nothing more than an indifferent shrug of the shoulders and rubber stamp their convenience store schemes. The most recent example in London is the Leighton Arms in Holloway which will become Nisa and luxury homes, having broken a previous commitment to retain the pub which was sold to a developer by Punch.                 This shameful and wanton destruction of our heritage and culture, before our very eyes, is, according to ministers, freeing up red tape, providing flexibility in the planning system, assisting in our economic growth, and avoiding the need for unnecessary regulation. We know a previous Pubs Minister who believed that, or at least claimed to, until his local, the Porcupine in Nottingham, was sold (by Punch) to become a Lidl supermarket. If you think it won’t happen to you, with two pubs every week turning into supermarkets, it is only a matter of time. Something has to be done to empower communities and preserve our social infrastructure. That something could be the timely and welcome amendment to the Neighbourhood Planning Bill, proposed by Lord Kennedy of Southwark, and supported by a majority of some ninety peers, which will bring demolition and change of use of pubs under planning control. The amendment will achieve the same end as the previously defeated commons New Clause 9 in the name of Caroline Lucas and Greg Mulholland, which received cross party support but sadly failed by around 110 votes. We now have another sip from the cask when the bill returns to the House of Commons for further debate and its final reading. Parliamentary whispers suggest that ministers have hinted about some trivial concession on Article 4 Direction compensation regulations and a review of ACV provisions, which they were set to do anyway! But that was before they saw the strength of feeling in the House of Lords. Article 4 Directions are indeed available to local authorities, and conveniently for government this shifts all the blame, all the cost and aggravation and most of the risk away from ministers and on to local government. Before we finally achieve uniform and national planning protection for all pubs, as per our longstanding Pubs Matter campaign, we may just see a few more Article 4 Directions made.   Also a link to my pub saving toolkit at the top of our page would be great - it can be found here:   http://www.london.camra.org.uk/viewnode.php ?id=43486   No point reinventing the wheel eh?   James

ABOUT CAMRA

CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale is an independent, voluntary organisation of nearly 185,000 members campaigning for real ale, community pubs and consumer rights. CAMRA acts as the champion for beer drinkers and pub-goers on issues ranging from protecting pubs from closing down, keeping the lid on the price of a pint and ensuring there is fair competition in the beer and pubs market. CAMRA supports well-run pubs as the centres of community life and believe their continued existence play a critical social role in UK culture.