A CHADDELWORTH pub is still struggling to keep afloat despite being named Best Community Pub of the year by a real ale society on Tuesday (February 17).
The Ibex Inn beat off fierce competition for the award from the West Berkshire branch of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), after it diversified the business to offer dry cleaning, shoe repairs and post office products.
But despite the pub’s more unusual services which prompted pub regulars to vote in such large numbers, Andy Jones who runs the pub said: “So many pubs are closing weekly, we are in a dire struggle ourselves.
“If it was not down to our landlords working a new deal with us we could likely have closed in the next few weeks but the good news is today we’re likely to survive and move onwards.”
Mr Jones blamed the economic crisis for the downturn in pubs’ fortunes.
“Everybody’s worried about the pound in their pocket. I think if we could compete with supermarket prices the pub would win hands down,” he said.
Mr Jones has been running the pub with his wife Julia for about five years. The pub houses the local post office, sells take-away food, household items such as bread and lightbulbs and floral bouquets as well as alcohol.
Chairman of the West Berkshire branch of CAMRA, Adrian Bean, who presented Mr and Mrs Jones with the award said: “The problem we’ve noticed is that in a lot of areas a number of other facilties have gone and so you can get to the situation where we have isolated people and it’s much better for everybody if they have got a community and a sense of community and we feel that the pub is a good focal point for that.”
But Mr Bean warned that if there was a rise in alcohol duty in the next budget together with VAT rising in December to the level before it was reduced by 2.5 per cent last year, the district would see large numbers of pubs closing.