Pints West 97, Spring 2013 - Bristol & District CAMRA

Help save
the Bell!
PINTS WEST
Plans are in motion to make the Bell on Walcot Street Bath’s first
community-owned pub, after it was put up for sale by its owner of
24 years, Ian Wood. The local community has grabbed its chance
and is forming a co-operative to buy the pub. And they need your help!
A share offer will run until 20th March and starts at £500. The Bell cooperative
will keep running the pub as it is with the same management
team – and is committed to maintaining and enhancing the excellent
quality and choice of real ales on offer. The Bath & Borders branch of
CAMRA is fully behind the first co-operative bid in the region and they
wish us all the best. So if you don’t want the Bell to change – now is
your chance.
The Bell on Walcot Street
I’m sure many reading this may have visited the Bell. It truly is a
fantastic pub and the cornerstone of the local community. It is famous
for the quality of its live music ranging from Bluegrass to Afrobeat and
everything imaginable in between. I personally also go there because of
the beer. They have a great range of West Country ales on with seven
regular ales and two or three guests. It is a perennial entry in the CAM-
RA Good Beer Guide. The Bell is at the heart of the parish of Walcot in
Bath – an area with a unique community feel on the east side of the city.
It feels a bit more lived in than many of the smarter surrounding areas
and it’s long been seen as an area of creative enterprise and alternative
culture. The Bath Fringe Festival is run from an office at the back of the
Real ale handpumps at the Bell (photo by Hattie Knight)
Steve Henwood and Patrick Cave of the Bell community co-operative
and Don Foster MP at the opening of the share launch party.
pub and there is a long tradition of street and music festivals going back
to the 1970’s, including Walcot Nation Day which was effectively run
out of the Bell itself. Under Ian’s tenure the pub has grown in stature to
become the hub of the Walcot community, so it was a shock for all when
it came on the market.
So why does the community want to buy the Bell?
Although Ian Wood has said that he wants to sell it to someone he
can trust to run the Bell in the same spirit, the community thinks the
safest way is to control the future of the pub. A new buyer may take over
with the best intentions but circumstances change. Pubs that people have
thought of as immortal institutions have not proved so. This has been
brought into sharp focus for the people of Bath by the shock closure of
the much loved country pub, the Packhorse at South Stoke, in May 2012
(see Pints West 94, Summer 2012, or www.southstoke.net). Many of the
customers of the Bell were also customers of the legendary (or infamous)
Hat and Feather, a hundred yards up the road on London Street, which
closed in 2004. That pub was also run by Ian Wood but was sold by the
owners and is now sadly a steak restaurant. The community is concerned
that a similar fate may await the Bell.
Co-operatives – the new community business model
Communities are now becoming aware they may need to do something
themselves if they want to save their pub. And co-operatives provide
the ideal way to achieve this. It will not suit every pub – it needs an active
community ready to raise the funds and then to use the pub! There is a
lot of help out there available from bodies such as the Co-operatives UK,
the Plunkett Foundation, and CAMRA, who are all now providing help
and guidance (see links below). We have had invaluable help from Hilary
Sudbury of the Co-operative Development Agency in setting up the company.
Andy Shaw, a CAMRA National Executive Director, and chairman
of the Hail Weston Community Pub Society, has given valuable feedback
and advice on the proposal.
The Bar Code
by Eddie Taberner
Page 28