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Search forBig brewery shake-up could axe 30 jobs in pubs and head office
Wednesday, November 19, 2008, 23:00
Heavitree Brewery is consulting with staff about plans to close its managed house operation and transfer 20 pubs across to its leased estate.
This means the managers, who are currently paid a salary to run the pubs, will lose their jobs unless they successfully apply for a lease or tenancy. Leaseholders or tenant landlords pay Heavitree Brewery a rent and then run the pubs in question as their own businesses.
Six head office posts relating to the managed operation would also be lost if the restructure goes ahead.
Pubs under management include the Prospect Inn on Exeter Quay, the Royal Oak in Okehampton Street, the Passage House Inn in Topsham, the Old Rydon Inn in Kingsteignton and the Pen Inn in Newton Abbot.
One of the pub managers affected, who asked not to be named, said: "I'm very bitter about it because we have worked really hard, seven days a week, and done everything they asked. Now it's 'cheerio'.
"A lot of people left the meeting in tears after they told us. People are really worried about what they are going to do.
"I don't think this has left us with any option. We either take a tenancy, which means handing money over to Heavitree, or otherwise we are out of work and a home.
"I'm very wary of applying for a tenancy because normally there's an outlay for the fixtures and fittings, the legal costs for the assigning of the lease and, once you take it up, you have the responsibility for all the bills that come in."
Heavitree Brewery is already looking for new tenants or leaseholders and aims to complete the transfer process by the end of April.
The company owns 84 pubs, mostly in Devon, but including some as far afield as Chippenham and Weston-super-Mare.
The proposed restructure follows a strategic review which was launched in June, when the company issued a profits warning.
Managing director Graham Crocker said: "The theory behind the managed house is that it will produce a retail profit over and above that you might expect to receive by way of rent from a tenant or leaseholder.
"A managed house really needs to be a certain size and we only have a few houses that would be of the requisite size to operate as a managed house. Therefore it becomes increasingly difficult to justify having a managed house department. In the first instance we will be talking to the managers to see whether they wish to apply for the tenancy for their house, or indeed any other house."
On the current economic outlook for the pub trade, Mr Crocker added: "It would be a very brave person who forecasts an upturn right now, but I don't share the view that this is the death of the pub.
"Publicans used to be seen as people who sold beer, but now they have to be businesspeople. For those who pitch their offer correctly there's success out there waiting to happen."
