STRAP AGM and SWCP Ltd Shareholders Meeting
7.30pm Thursday 17th May at the Town Hall in Saffron Walden
Chairman’s Update – 24th April 2018
Dear All,
Last week we received the news by email via our agent that the directors of Charles Wells Ltd had decided at their meeting on 9th April that it is their “preferred route to undertake the investment in the pub [themselves] and then to recruit for a partner to run the business on a tenanted agreement”. Thus we need to take stock and decide how we wish to proceed.
Clearly our offers are not welcome and there seems to be little point in pursuing Charles Wells on the matter anytime soon. We were assured that their plans would be shared with us in a spirit of openness and potential co-operation but we were not advised of the terms of tenancy or lease, or even that adverts had been placed in late March. We were left to come across them online, quite by chance. The Management Committee of the Saffron Walden Community Pub Ltd (SWCP) feel very strongly about the way our community and our pub have been dealt with over the last 15 months, and we have serious and well founded concerns about the details of the refurbishment and terms of the tenancy or lease. Having kept confidences in anticipation of further contact we now feel we have a duty to you to speak out.
The directors of Charles Wells Ltd obviously believe they can acquire planning permission for a major refurbishment and that a suitable tenant with c.£50,000 available to invest in year one and around c.£35,000 pa in years two to five will come forward. Such a tenant will have to submit to a tie to the company for all drinks, and re-establish from scratch a customer base capable of providing a living for him/herself and a rate of return in the order of 10% on an inflated internal valuation of the Railway Arms.
The owner’s unrealistic “book price” bears no relation to market value and it has proved unrealisable over the last 15 months. Nevertheless it is what drives the company’s thinking and it is the Railway’s inability to service that expectation that lies behind its sorry condition now and the planned major refurbishment.
Any talk of community in these plans (the word is [ab]used twice in the documentation) should be considered alongside the stated need to “… entice premium clientele” and “… attract the affluent local population by introducing a premium drinks range and a distinctive, targeted food offer”. Premium clientele and the affluent local population may wish to consider that, in opposing the registration of the Railway as an Asset of Community Value (ACV), Charles Wells Ltd appointed a solicitor who invited Uttlesford District Council to consider whether the pub is “… more than simply a place where people can imbibe alcohol” and claimed that they cannot see any link between “…a popular pub, serving good beer and it serving the social well-being or interests of the local community”.
Where in the major refurbishment is the performance space for local musicians, where is the artist’s exhibition space or the function room available to local groups and societies, premium or otherwise? Where is the ‘men’s shed’ with its proven mental health benefits? Where is the sensory garden, big enough and open enough not to be a smoker’s bolt-hole? Where is the community cafe and shop, and how does a pub laid out for 56 pricey covers address the rising and all too real problem of loneliness experienced by many in our town?
The old buildings, about to be added to the Local Heritage List in recognition of their place in the town over more than 150 years, and their grounds and garden, will have to change to accommodate a business required to achieve an 80:20 split on drinks and food whilst tied to a brewery that hasn’t even been built yet. There is no mention in the documentation of a garden other than within the courtyard; make of that what you will. If ever there was a business model rather than a building that needed to change, we have it here.
Sure, our aims as members and supporters of STRAP could be achieved so long as the pub is re-opened, but will it really be saved, and for how long? As shareholders of SWCP we have an alternative, viable, sustainable business model and we may feel that it is worth holding onto in case a planning application fails.
Maybe we won’t. Perhaps we’ll decide that the refusal of our offers marks a point at which we should accept the inevitable. Certainly, with £250,000 of your money in the society’s bank account, we recognise our responsibilities as a Management Committee and we are on hand for members who may wish to discuss their investment in the company. At this stage in our campaign, we need to hear the views of individual members, and have a mandate from a clear majority of members to continue the good fight.
We have booked the Town Hall for the evening of Thursday 17th May for a combined STRAP AGM and SWCP Ltd Shareholders Meeting, please put the date in your diaries.
Between now and then we will be compiling and running a survey, the results of which we’d like to be able to discuss on the 17th. We’d value your thoughts on a Railway Arms re-opened by, and tied to, Charles Wells Ltd and on how the prospect meets your aspiration to Save The Railway Arms. Please keep an eye out for our next email, it will include the link. You have the thoughts of the committee and the Management Committee and we’re all around, contactable and available to talk to. It is your thoughts, however, that will decide the future of the
company and the campaign.
Cheers
Dave
STRAP AGM and SWCP Ltd Shareholders Meeting
7.30pm Thursday 17th May at the Town Hall in Saffron Walden
Chairman’s Update – 24th April 2018
Dear All,
Last week we received the news by email via our agent that the directors of Charles Wells Ltd had decided at their meeting on 9th April that it is their “preferred route to undertake the investment in the pub [themselves] and then to recruit for a partner to run the business on a tenanted agreement”. Thus we need to take stock and decide how we wish to proceed.
Clearly our offers are not welcome and there seems to be little point in pursuing Charles Wells on the matter anytime soon. We were assured that their plans would be shared with us in a spirit of openness and potential co-operation but we were not advised of the terms of tenancy or lease, or even that adverts had been placed in late March. We were left to come across them online, quite by chance. The Management Committee of the Saffron Walden Community Pub Ltd (SWCP) feel very strongly about the way our community and our pub have been dealt with over the last 15 months, and we have serious and well founded concerns about the details of the refurbishment and terms of the tenancy or lease. Having kept confidences in anticipation of further contact we now feel we have a duty to you to speak out.
The directors of Charles Wells Ltd obviously believe they can acquire planning permission for a major refurbishment and that a suitable tenant with c.£50,000 available to invest in year one and around c.£35,000 pa in years two to five will come forward. Such a tenant will have to submit to a tie to the company for all drinks, and re-establish from scratch a customer base capable of providing a living for him/herself and a rate of return in the order of 10% on an inflated internal valuation of the Railway Arms.
The owner’s unrealistic “book price” bears no relation to market value and it has proved unrealisable over the last 15 months. Nevertheless it is what drives the company’s thinking and it is the Railway’s inability to service that expectation that lies behind its sorry condition now and the planned major refurbishment.
Any talk of community in these plans (the word is [ab]used twice in the documentation) should be considered alongside the stated need to “… entice premium clientele” and “… attract the affluent local population by introducing a premium drinks range and a distinctive, targeted food offer”. Premium clientele and the affluent local population may wish to consider that, in opposing the registration of the Railway as an Asset of Community Value (ACV), Charles Wells Ltd appointed a solicitor who invited Uttlesford District Council to consider whether the pub is “… more than simply a place where people can imbibe alcohol” and claimed that they cannot see any link between “…a popular pub, serving good beer and it serving the social well-being or interests of the local community”.
Where in the major refurbishment is the performance space for local musicians, where is the artist’s exhibition space or the function room available to local groups and societies, premium or otherwise? Where is the ‘men’s shed’ with its proven mental health benefits? Where is the sensory garden, big enough and open enough not to be a smoker’s bolt-hole? Where is the community cafe and shop, and how does a pub laid out for 56 pricey covers address the rising and all too real problem of loneliness experienced by many in our town?
The old buildings, about to be added to the Local Heritage List in recognition of their place in the town over more than 150 years, and their grounds and garden, will have to change to accommodate a business required to achieve an 80:20 split on drinks and food whilst tied to a brewery that hasn’t even been built yet. There is no mention in the documentation of a garden other than within the courtyard; make of that what you will. If ever there was a business model rather than a building that needed to change, we have it here.
Sure, our aims as members and supporters of STRAP could be achieved so long as the pub is re-opened, but will it really be saved, and for how long? As shareholders of SWCP we have an alternative, viable, sustainable business model and we may feel that it is worth holding onto in case a planning application fails.
Maybe we won’t. Perhaps we’ll decide that the refusal of our offers marks a point at which we should accept the inevitable. Certainly, with £250,000 of your money in the society’s bank account, we recognise our responsibilities as a Management Committee and we are on hand for members who may wish to discuss their investment in the company. At this stage in our campaign, we need to hear the views of individual members, and have a mandate from a clear majority of members to continue the good fight.
We have booked the Town Hall for the evening of Thursday 17th May for a combined STRAP AGM and SWCP Ltd Shareholders Meeting, please put the date in your diaries.
Between now and then we will be compiling and running a survey, the results of which we’d like to be able to discuss on the 17th. We’d value your thoughts on a Railway Arms re-opened by, and tied to, Charles Wells Ltd and on how the prospect meets your aspiration to Save The Railway Arms. Please keep an eye out for our next email, it will include the link. You have the thoughts of the committee and the Management Committee and we’re all around, contactable and available to talk to. It is your thoughts, however, that will decide the future of the
company and the campaign.
Cheers
Dave
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‘From the towns all Inns have been driven: from the villages most…. Change your hearts or you will lose your Inns and you will deserve to have lost them. But when you have lost your Inns drown your empty selves, for you will have lost the last of England.’
HILAIRE BELLOC, This and That and The Other, 1912
(ALAN COLLARD, STRAP Public Meeting, Saffron Walden Town Hall, 19th April 2017)