Ralph Fiennes has thrown his weight behind a community pub ownership campaign in Middleton, Suffolk, where villagers are racing to raise £550,000 to buy the grade II listed Bell Inn from brewer Adnams. The buyout is the latest sign that community ownership is becoming a serious force in the market for village pub freeholds.
A 17th-century freehold with a £425,000 asking price
Adnams, the Southwold brewer famous for its bitter, announced earlier this year that it would sell the 17th-century thatched pub for £425,000. Residents responded by forming a charitable Community Benefit Society to lead a buyout.
Thirty residents have bought shares so far, and many more plan to make charitable donations that will benefit from tax relief. The campaign has raised £380,000 towards its £550,000 target.
Fiennes, who played Voldemort in the Harry Potter films and owns a home close to Dunwich Heath, told The Times: “The Bell at Middleton has kept its integrity as a village pub, I mean it has atmosphere, simple, convivial, traditional, friendly. No frills or trying too hard. You feel at home the moment you walk in. And most important it feels ‘Suffolk’.”
“Adnams’ pubs were often synonymous with this quality,” he added. “Post Adnams’ ownership, I hope the Bell finds new management that keeps its spirit intact.”
The pub has long attracted famous faces. Villagers still reminisce about spotting a teenaged Ed Sheeran drinking there.
Community buyouts are gathering pace nationwide
The Middleton campaign is far from an outlier. According to the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra), there are 101 active community buyout campaigns under way, and the number of community-owned pubs in the UK stands at 237 and rising.
Paul Ainsworth, Camra’s national planning and policy advisor, expects the government’s upcoming £60 million community right-to-buy fund to accelerate the trend. “I think it will revitalise the whole community ownership scene because money is the root of all these schemes … like the one in Suffolk, £500,000 is not small change so raising that amount of money yourself is quite a challenge.”
Crucially for anyone assessing these ventures, the model has a strong track record. “Community owned pubs have invariably been very successful and there have only been very few instances of these pubs failing,” Ainsworth said, noting that local people usually hold a direct or indirect stake in the business.
Ownership structure explains much of that resilience, he argued. Because the community buys the freehold outright, these pubs avoid the fate of tied tenants whose landlords, in his words, jack up the rent and “squeeze them dry”. Freehold control, he added, makes the finances “much more manageable”.
The gastro squeeze on traditional locals
The Suffolk coast has no shortage of upmarket dining, from The Crown in Westleton, where the Prince and Princess of Wales spent their first wedding anniversary in 2012, to The Suffolk in Aldeburgh. But traditional pubs serving simple pub grub are struggling to compete with gastro pubs chasing deeper pockets.
Helen Atkinson-Wood, the Blackadder actress who has also backed the campaign, said pressure to offer a “gastropub experience” makes it harder for drink-first pubs to survive. “That’s why it’s really important to keep pubs where you don’t need to have an oyster banquet when you eat in an East Anglian pub,” she said.
Gillian Stacey, who is leading the campaign, warned of what happens when village pubs hit the market. “You drive through picturesque villages in Suffolk and when pubs are on the market they become derelict very quickly as this one would do.” Without reaching the target, she fears many villagers, particularly the elderly, will be socially isolated.
Upcoming fundraisers include an auction offering an etching course, a drive in a Maserati, a lambing day and a day in a Southwold beach hut.
What this means for investors
For investors, the rise of community pub ownership changes the buyer pool for village freeholds. Well organised local groups, soon backed by government money, can now compete credibly for assets that might once have gone cheaply to developers, as sales such as the Duke of Wellington Inn in the North York Moors illustrate.
There is a residential angle too. Research shows pubs top the list of must-have amenities for homebuyers, so a saved village local supports house prices around it. For anyone weighing up buying a commercial freehold, the lesson from Middleton is that community bidders are no longer a curiosity. They are competition.
