NIMBYs are also a threat to pubs

Some years back, I visited a property with a friend who was considering buying a flat in the building, which was situated in the Highbury area of North London and backed onto a hidden side street. His interest in this specific part of town was very much piqued by the proximity of The Compton Arms. 

As a renter of a basic room in a shared house, I was not only very jealous of his potential move into a pad of his own, but also by the fact he would have this lovely little pub as his local. I knew the place very well as I’d visited it many times to watch various England games, enjoy pre-gig pints before seeing bands in the Union Chapel, and simply taken the opportunity on many occasions to drop in for a quiet pint (unless Arsenal were playing at home) when passing through the area.

The compact detached cream building, with its colourful hanging baskets above a couple of wooden benches out front, nestling perfectly on Compton Avenue, was such a picturesque sight that owners Greene King had once used it in a national television advertising campaign promoting its beers.

We have all been mightily pleased when our own personally much-loved hospitality businesses, which have given us so much joy over the years, have come through the covid-19 period, and this was certainly the case for me with The Compton Arms. But the tentacles of the pandemic continue to reach into areas we could not have envisaged, and this North London boozer is now fighting for survival as a result of the objections of four local households.

They allege the pub is a public nuisance, poorly run, that the licensee has no interest in communicating with them, and that it is a danger to health. The latter cannot surely be from the food because the chef has previously worked at Dabbous, Texture and Bao. It sounds like the residents are throwing the kitchen sink at the pub with their raft of complaints. Meanwhile, the pub’s licensee says the group simply got used to the quiet when the business was closed during the various covid-19 lockdowns, and now they want it closed for good.

Regardless of how tempting it sometimes seems, I would certainly not live in close proximity to a pub as I value quiet in the evenings far too much. But many people do fall for it – including those complaining about The Compton Arms, I suspect – and so I have little sympathy for their situation. The pub has clearly been around a lot longer than these individuals, and should they win their case, the reality is they will undoubtedly be gone in a number of years and be replaced with other residents. But the pub would most likely be unviable and potentially gone forever, with developers recognising the opportunity for turning it into more flats in a desirable location.

The issue of noise around pubs and restaurants certainly became an issue within Soho when indoor dining and drinking was prohibited, and the relaxation in the rules over using the pavements and roads led to something of a carnival atmosphere in the area. When indoor dining returned the Soho, the locals demanded the outdoor tables be packed away as the levels of noise outside was not what they’d signed up for. They won the argument (helped by the fire brigade arguing it could not navigate its engines through the streets). With the temporary outdoor licenses handed out during covid-19 becoming permanent in 2023, pubs and restaurants must take great care to ensure they do not put at risk this very valuable additional trading space.

With the gloomy prediction that thousands of pubs are now on the brink of closure as a result of soaring energy bills (and everything else for that matter), and major pub operators including Greene King, Carlsberg Marston’s and Admiral Taverns wanting the Government to help them over the dire situation, the last thing any pub tenant or owner needs is to be faced with closure threats from complaining neighbours.

While the fate of many pubs looks to be in the balance over the coming months, The Compton Arms’ future is expected to be decided a little sooner (late September) by an Islington Council committee. Let’s hope it survives and we avoid the setting of a dangerous precedent. 

Glynn Davis, editor of Retail Insider 

This piece was originally published on Propel Info where Glynn Davis writes a regular Friday opinion piece. Beer Insider would like to thank Propel for allowing the reproduction of this column.