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Daily launches campaign to save local boozers

A daily newspaper has become the latest to launch a campaign aimed at saving closure-threatened local pubs

The Coventry Telegraph is issuing a rallying cry to politicians, landlords and drinkers to help halt the closures across the West Midlands city.

The Trinity Mirror daily reports that in the Coventry and Nuneaton area, it is believed at least 29 pubs have closed in the last two years, 20 of which have been confirmed as permanent.

Nationally 1.5pc of pubs across the UK closed in 2009 but the West Midlands region has been worse hit with 2.4pc of boozers calling last orders for the final time, says the Telegraph.

On Monday, we reported that another Midlands newspaper, Stroud Life, was running a ‘Save the Local’ campaign and had launched its own brew called ‘Stroud Life’ as part of the initiative.

Following the launch of ‘Save Our Pubs’ on Friday and Saturday with double page spreads, the Telegraph is carrying a page lead news story every day this week which is already producing results and generating calls from local landlords.

Reporter Martin Bagot, who is spearheading the Telegraph’s campaign, told HTFP: “I had a done a few stories about pubs closing down and when I spoke to landlords there seemed to be a particular problem in Coventry.

“I thought it would make a good campaign and one of the aims is to get local MPs to back it and push for a change in planning legislation.

“The Campaign for Real Ale is planning an early day motion and aiming to get 100 MPs to support this to make it more difficult to get pubs to change their use.

“There appears to be minimal things in planning laws to stop that.”

A Facebook group has set up where people can leave messages and comments on the campaign while Justice for Licensees and the British Institute of Innkeepers are also supporting the scheme.

Inez Ward, leader of Justice for Licensees, said: “This is a great campaign because pubs are disappearing.

“People tend to forget that the pub isn’t just somewhere to drink, it provides much more of a service to the community than that. When the community loses that service they never get it back.”

Bernard Brindley, from the British Institute of Innkeepers, added: “This campaign to help keep the community pubs open has got to be a good thing. Once you lose a village pub you are taking away the heart of the community.”