Una Mullally: Many pubs are on their knees. Let communities buy them

A broken clock is right twice a day, and in that spirit, the Tories deserve some credit for advancing the Community Ownership Fund in their budget statement earlier this month. The fund totals £150 million, which will be allocated to help communities take over local pubs, theatres, music venues, sports clubs, and post office buildings. What it means in practical terms, is that groups will be able to apply for up to £250,000 in match-funding, and in some cases up to £1 million, to save community spaces such as sports grounds.

Britain has a very different co-operative culture to Ireland, and we can learn from the co-op movement. While many people may balk at the idea of being on the board of a local pub with convoluted decision-making processes, it doesn’t need to be like that. There are plenty of examples that we can learn from – from community gardens to football clubs – where there is a community investment, overall ownership and a more direct management structure.

Dotted around the country are beautiful old buildings, from derelict garages to boarded-up pubs, that communities could bring back to life had they access to financing

In Ireland, we have never-ending conversations about various public baths and market buildings which have fallen into ruin – the latter often the victim of land-hoarding and intentional dereliction, which is a form of vandalism. Dotted around the country are beautiful old buildings, from derelict garages to boarded-up pubs, that communities could bring back to life had they access to financing. Why can’t a community collective have first dibs?

Such a fund could also act as a very practical intervention against the corporate gentrification that has plunged Dublin, for example, into a mess of disjointed, unwanted, homogenous and often ugly development, at odds with the architectural character of the city and the needs of those who live in and move to the city. And given the immense pressure rural pubs are under, many traditional pubs, intrinsic to Irish social culture, are now on their knees. Let the people buy them.

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Patronising discourse

A community ownership fund could be a mechanism to stymie inevitable rural gentrification as remote working becomes embedded in our culture. Remote working will disperse at least some people away from expensive urban centres. While this provides an opportunity for some towns and villages to be enhanced by new populations, there is also a patronising discourse that surrounds this, as if younger urban “professionals” are some kind of saviours who will journey to towns in Ireland and reinvigorate them with their tastes and wallets.

In Dublin, many people look on with dismay as entire streets and beloved old buildings are flattened or taken over by international investors or funds that have no attachment or link to the locality. For communities, a building might have been hugely loved, filled with memories, and holds an importance that is greater than bricks and mortar.

How can we ensure it's not just those with the deepest pockets who get to dictate cultural offerings?

But for distant investors, where a building merely makes up another unit in a broader portfolio, there is no emotional, social or community attachment to the space. This is a profound disconnect that disturbs and sometimes totally diminishes the cultural and recreational value of a space in a place.

It is extraordinary that, in recent years, buildings that could have been utilised for amazing cultural projects, from the spectacular silos at Boland’s Mill to the old motor tax office in Dublin 7, faced not imagination, but wrecking balls. Such destruction treats the idiosyncrasies of a city’s landscape that may not be the prettiest things in the world as mere inconveniences. It ignores potential. It’s ignorant.

Noise complaints

There are two other things relevant to Ireland around people accessing spaces in their communities that are being done well in Britain. Power to Change is a community business organisation that works with communities to “revive local assets” funded by the National Lottery Community Fund, offering grants and financing to communities. There’s also the agent-of-change principle becoming embedded in planning in London where existing venues are protected against noise complaints from residents of new developments, and where the onus is on new developments to put in place noise-mitigating measures.

When we go back to pubs, clubs, restaurants, theatres, cinemas and sporting grounds, the financial pressure the pandemic placed on all of them will mean many will not be able to “open back up” as society does. So what’s worth saving? And how can we ensure it’s not just those with the deepest pockets who get to dictate the trajectory of the night-time economy and other cultural offerings?

So what would a community ownership fund look like in Ireland? How could we tailor such an initiative to our local communities in city neighbourhoods, villages and towns? What’s also crucial now is that the Government listens to more than lobby groups and representative bodies. It’s not just the business-owners who are relevant in the reinvigoration of our social lives, but also the people who go out.

Balancing the power between the participant and the owner, and examining mechanisms whereby people can have a greater stake in the cultural and recreational spaces in their communities, can only be a good thing. It creates co-operation, enhances social cohesion, increases volunteerism, and allows people a sense of control and participation in their social lives and the venues where those lives live.