When I first moved to London to work I came with little more than a single suitcase, which contained all life’s essential items including a copy of Nicholson’s London Pub Guide (circa 1985). Outside of working hours this book became my bible for exploring the capital city. I eagerly ticked off the many pubs within its covers and since those days I’ve been able to navigate my way around the sprawling metropolis pub by pub.

At that stage I drank plenty of mass-produced lager because my interest was more about pubs than it was about beer. I still largely maintain this view today – give me a very average beer in a great pub and I will value this so much more than drinking the world’s best beers in a bland pub or at home. Obviously I want both but you can’t always get what you want.

The pub has always been a vital part of my life and so it is no surprise the numerous closures that have taken place across the country over the past couple of decades has been massively disappointing. Every boarded-up pub that I pass I find deeply saddening. When the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) regularly reports the levels of pub closures – they’ve been as high as almost 30 a month – I take a moment to consider those communities that have lost a valuable asset. 

It is good these closures command column inches but I find the situation with pubs is not quite as bad as the glass-half-empty scenario that is frequently painted and I’d be inclined to veer towards believing we are entering glass-half-full territory. The reason for my bullish stance is down to the fact there are so many examples of new pubs being opened. Probably the best example is JD Wetherspoon – I’ve long been a big fan of the excellent work the company has done with bringing dilapidated municipal buildings on many high streets back to life as pubs. 

It is some time since it was interested in running pubs in existing buildings. Part of this is down to Wetherpoon’s desire to open significant-sized venues – shall we call them “beerodromes” – with one of its recent openings the Mossy Well in north London spanning almost 10,000 square feet compared with nearer 2,000 to 3,000 square feet for the more traditional scale pubs it has recently been offloading. When you net out the openings and closings at Wetherspoon then I reckon it would be in positive territory in terms of new square footage.

It is also at this larger-scale end of things Marston’s continues with its strategy of food-led new-build pubs. Since a rights issue raised £165m in 2009 its objective has been to deliver 60 new pubs each year. Right now it has about 100 in the pipeline. Each site is selected on the basis of having no nearby competition and is located in towns where there are ideally 20,000 people as well as having decent traffic flows because these are pubs that many people will drive to.

It’s not just at the big end and with new-builds where the action is because there is much to be excited about at the other end of the spectrum. Micro-pubs are springing up all over the country and are sometimes located in small towns that could no longer support a traditional-sized pub. However, a mini version that’s rammed if it has a mere 20 customers is a different proposition. Their appearance is therefore welcomed by local communities.

As with Wetherspoon the micro-pubs are formed from the conversions of other real estate – in micro-pubs’ case it is former retail premises that have been forced to close. It is just such a strategy that is now being employed by Sussex-based brewer Dark Star. Its desire to operate free-of-tie has made it tough to take on existing pubs in its preferred locations so it has instead gone down the route of converting a former shoe shop in Horsham, a cocktail bar in Haywards Heath, and it is employing the same strategy as it looks for its next site in Crawley, West Sussex. 

Further evidence of this trend for new pubs was found on a recent visit I made to see my family in Doncaster. On the station’s platform 3B I spotted work being undertaken on the long since closed Buffet Rooms that will see it open as the Draughtsman’s Ale House. In a delightful resurrection of this compact room, with superb original glazed tiling, the pub will be a tremendous addition to the station and will certainly warrant a visit from me the next time I head up north. This is hard evidence that the emergence of new pubs is very much a national phenomenon and suggests that the pub industry is far from just being a story of closures.

Organisationally modern-day temperance has spread its influence through several organisations. These organisations have in turn influenced alcohol policy, both nationally, through connections with the UK’s chief medical officers and Public Health England (PHE), and globally, by influencing the alcohol policy of the World Health Organisation (WHO).

In the UK, there is an umbrella organisation called the Alcohol Health Alliance (AHA), led by anti-alcohol fanatic professor Sir Ian Gilmore, and members of the AHA include Alcohol Concern, which is now the campaigning arm of Alcohol Research UK (ARUK), and most notably, the Institute of Alcohol Studies (IAS). It is IAS that has been most instrumental in influencing policy both in the UK and abroad. IAS is owned by the charity Alliance House, and has its offices in the same building. On the board of Alliance House sits the International Order of Good Templars (IOGT International), The Temperance Society and the Band of Hope – together with a host of other 19th century temperance organisations that time forgot!

IAS and its founder Derek Rutherford were instrumental in establishing “GAPA” – the Global Alcohol Policy Alliance – that influences and advises the WHO. They are also members of “Eurocare” – formed to lobby the European Union on alcohol policy. These relationships and strands of influence are not new, but I didn’t realise until quite recently just how close the working relationship between the IAS and the UK “public health” establishment really is. 

Whilst it was evident from the number of IAS associates that sat on the committee that set the new “low-risk” drinking guidelines that their influence was pernicious, the full extent of it has only just been revealed by some Freedom of Information (FOI) requests made by Christopher Snowdon, who is the director of lifestyle economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs. In summary, his FOI requests revealed emails that show IAS and PHE working hand-in-glove. Between November 2014 and December 2016, IAS and PHE were in almost constant contact with meetings happening almost every month and more than 330 emails were exchanged. According to Snowdon, PHE officials gave IAS members access to unpublished documents, shared their contacts in government, promoted IAS material, invited IAS members on to three committees and even moved their official meetings to IAS’ offices in Caxton Street, London.

The result of this invidious contact is IAS has succeeded in intellectually colonising the UK “public health” establishment and in skewing its view of research into the health benefits of moderate alcohol consumption. This is most evident in the chief medical officers’ “low-risk” drinking guidelines and in its declaration that “there is no safe level of alcohol consumption”.

Evidence to the contrary existed well before the new guidelines were published, but new research evidence emphasises the point that moderate consumption of alcohol is both compatible with a healthy lifestyle and is good for the heart. The research, published in the British Medical Journal, studied 1.93 million people in the UK aged above 30 and found drinking in moderation – defined as consuming no more than 14 units of alcohol a week – had a protective effect on the heart compared with not drinking. Furthermore, moderate drinkers were found less likely than non-drinkers to develop angina, heart attack, heart failure, ischaemic stroke or circulation problems caused by a build-up of fat in the arteries. Researchers found lifelong non-drinkers have a 24% higher premature mortality rate than moderate drinkers. The research was carried out by the University of Cambridge and University College London.

The public and politicians are presented with a false dichotomy by so-called “public health” – that we either believe research commissioned by Big Alcohol, which must be tainted by self-interest, or we believe what “public health” and so-called independent research organisations such as ARUK and the IAS say – because they have no axe to grind. Except of course, they do. Well, the latest research I’ve just referred to is truly independent, and it contradicts some of the most treasured nostrums of “public health”.

The report of the House of Lords select committee on the Licensing Act 2003, published last month, was nothing if not controversial. Of the 73 recommendations that emanated from the report, some have grabbed more headlines than others, but perhaps none more so than the radical proposal the licensing and planning regimes should be merged – in effect, that licensing should be taken away from council licensing committees and the responsibility for licensing decisions placed with local authority planning departments. 

The Institute of Licensing (IOL) has already published its reaction to this part of the report, highlighting the concerns of many of its members about such a dramatic proposed change to licensing, and the problems it would raise in practice. The IOL’s initial reaction is moving licensing to planning would not serve the public interest. We are in the process of consulting the institute’s membership, and will give a more detailed response to the report once the results of our membership survey have been received. 

Another topic on which the IOL expects to be at the forefront emerged from the recommendations, namely an improvement in training, which, if implemented, should lead to more consistent decision-making. The recommended training was aimed at members of licensing committees and the police. The importance of the work they do was fully recognised and the committee recorded its concern it was vital these roles were fulfilled with integrity, and full understanding of the livelihoods at stake – a point the IOL believes is normally the case and would entirely endorse. It appears to be nothing more than good sense that those making decisions about the livelihoods wrapped up in premises licences should be well equipped for the job with quality training on an ongoing basis. This is a message the IOL has always promoted, and will continue to do so, while engaging in a pro-active way with the new training landscape that is to come. 

A detailed reading of the report (eg paragraph 129) makes it plain local authority licensing officers were fully recognised by the committee as the specialist professionals they are, and the IOL has underlined this, while being very clear any change that undermined rather than enhanced this role would not serve the public interest. It is difficult to see how a licensing/planning merger would work, and doubtful enough evidence was considered by the committee in order to answer such a question. The committee did indicate it thought it should be “explored seriously”, and one of the potential consequences of doing so would be to understand more completely why it would not work and to flush out other important issues at the same time. 

One of the major criticisms that has come forward in response to the committee’s recommendation has focused on the deficiencies of the planning process – an “out of the frying pan, into the fire” argument, to which the answer must surely be deficiencies should be addressed wherever they are found, and not left alone for want of a better alternative. It is also true to say for every example that might be given of poor practice or bad behaviour, in either licensing or planning, there is at least another example to counter it of admirable and conscientious decision-making, and the report commented on this too. No-one would dispute the aspiration for improvement across the system, however, and much of the report focused on that. There seemed to be no expectation for anything to happen in a hurry, and so there will be time for a mature debate in which the IOL looks forward to participating robustly. 

The committee has clearly also attempted to tackle the complex issues of pricing and taxation of alcohol, pre-loading and sales to drunken persons. While many hold strong opinions on such matters, practical steps to tackle them are not easy to identify. The committee borrowed heavily from the Scottish approach, with a “wait and see” attitude on minimum unit pricing and a limited suite of measures it found suitable to tackle alcohol sales that might fuel pre-loading and drunkenness, again, to a large extent, following Scottish models. It may be continuing this discussion will identify more effective methods that could be promoted. 

There was a clear theme throughout the report of promoting clarity, consistency and transparency within the licensing system, whether that is through the decisions of sub-committees, the Temporary Event Notices system, the application process or a personal licence database. The IOL supports any improvements to the licensing system that promote consistency and would support its members in giving or receiving a better-quality service. The report clearly highlights some recommendations as to how this can be achieved. 

The IOL strives for best practice, and the interests of all participants in the licensing system, and looks forward to engaging fully in the ongoing debate as to which of the report recommendations should be promoted to deliver true improvements to the regime that we value.