Couple who revived pub now face being evicted
ACOUPLE who invested thousands of pounds of their savings into breathing new life into a dilapidated pub are facing eviction.
Pub company Stonegate Group has given Christian and Samantha Gibbs until October 25 to leave The Major on Bolton Road in Ramsbottom.
The move leaves the couple who sold their £200,000 semi-detached house in nearby Brandlesholme to start their own business looking for somewhere else to live.
But already, 120 regulars have signed up to attend a meeting at The Major next Wednesday organised by Dave Mountford from Forum of British Pubs, aimed at trying to persuade Stonegate to reverse its decision.
Samantha, 43, said so many people have signed up to attend they may have to hold two separate meetings so that there can be adequate social distancing.
And she said her family were ‘heartbroken’ about having to leave the pub.
“We love it,” she said. “We work long hours. Sometimes at the weekend I’ll come down here at 10am and I won’t get back upstairs until after 11.30pm. Even when we’re closed we’re still working.
“There are people saying they will boycott the pub if we are thrown out. We know all the customers by name. Nine times out of 10, we don’t need to ask people what they want to drink because we already know what they like.”
Including an £8,500 deposit paid to Stonegate, Samantha said the couple had ploughed £18,500 into the pub on November 5 2019, just four months before the first pandemic lockdown.
The pub had been empty for six weeks and had become rat infested and she described the living accommodation as ‘total squalor’, unfit for her two children Ami, 17, and Jackson, 11, to live in.
“It was filthy,” she said. “Pipes were leaking, the drainage system was a complete mess and at the back of the pub there was wooden decking which was rotten.
“The rats had got underneath it and burrowed into the cellar. We had to fight to get the pub company to concrete the back and put paving stones down and block up the wall to prevent the rats coming in.
“Then we had to have a heightened pest control contact. There was mould and damp on the walls and the in the toilets there is still a rotten window.”
Samantha said her 42-year-old husband had thankfully kept working as a lorry driver while she has been running the pub.
“Thank God we made the decision for one of us keep working,” she said.
And she added: “I’m quite keen to understand why breweries are treating families with children like this.
“We came here with two children. In October we’ve got nowhere to live. We won’t be able to buy a house like the one we had. We are heartbroken.”
Mr Mountford, a longstanding campaigner for the rights of people running pubs owned by pub companies said: “The situation is very straightforward. This couple are running a pub which was in a very poor state of repair and they built it up into a successful business, and now they have been given notice to exit the pub. Legally, there is no issue at all.
“The bigger picture is that most pubs in this country are owned by property companies masquerading as breweries.
“That is what is wrong with the pub industry.”
A spokesperson for the Stonegate Group said, “The Major has been operated on a one year agreement by tenants Samantha and Christian Gibbs following prior negotiations that included the option of a longer term agreement which was refused at the time.
“Within the agreement a notice period of threemonths is required which we have now exercised in order to put in place a longer term tenant.”