Pubs ‘must adapt to survive’ to changing demand

PUBS MUST diversify to survive, the regional director of the Campaign for Real Ale has warned, as habits have changed with the decline of Yorkshire’s traditional industries.

With the pit closures came pub closures, Kevin Keaveney said, and more followed with the loss of traditional factories and steel works.

In York, some of the city’s favourite pubs disappeared as they served workers from sites like the Carriage Works or the Chocolate Works. But here, he said, the city has seen a huge resurgence of craft ale and bar industries as owners diversify to meet changing demand. “The city of York is a complete oddity,” he said. “For every pub that closes, two more takes its place. We are a more mobile society today.”

Mr Keaveney cites some of York’s best known lost pubs; The Locomotive on Watson Street, which closed in 2010. The Cygnet was once a favourite with the chocolate workers. There was the Edward VII in Nunnery Lane, and The Reindeer of Lowther Street, which is now a supermarket.

There’s The Magpie, and The Yearsley Grove near Huntington Road, he said, which was once an old coaching stop.

Another, on Huntington Road, has become a church and modern-day community centre, The Turf Tavern, in Acomb, now housing, and the Bumper Castle, once an officers’ mess during the war, now a restaurant.

“We talk to people that used to use the pubs one or two nights a week,” he said. “They would go straight from work for a drink, all the football teams, darts and dominoes. These pubs ran youth teams, they were the focal point of the community. There were bus trips to Scarborough, Bridlington and Whitby.

“All that’s disappeared. Communities have changed. Bishopthorpe Road was for chocolate workers and railway workers, now it’s for university staff. There’s a new community started here.

“It went right down as far as it could go, and now it’s thriving. And it’s the same across Yorkshire’s working cities – Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield, Doncaster.

“They all had very traditional industries. When the pits went, these villages had it tough. When the mines went, the jobs went. That did for a lot of pubs.

“The ones that will survive will be the ones that diversify.”