There are few things more traditional in Wales than heading down to the local pub for a drink after a long week and catching up with friends, family and neighbours, to engage with those around you and to feel part of something very special - a community. That cosy and dare we say nostalgic pleasure is under threat in many places across Wales and further afield, however.
For many, their villages - once home to one or even several local boozers - are now just a through-road of houses, filled with residents sat behind closed doors, left with nowhere to socialise and often nobody to talk to. Across Wales and England, more than 32 pubs closed each and every month in 2022. Energy bills, staffing pressures, a lack of footfall as the erstwhile pub-goer tightens his or her belt....whatever the reason, there seems to be a crisis - among a sea of crises - enveloping the pub trade as we begin 2023.
In Crymych, a Pembrokeshire village some eight miles south of Cardigan, residents always had a pub, dating back to at least the mid-1800s. The Crymych Arms stood proudly at the north end of a village which sits quietly underneath the majestic hills of Preseli. But in September 2021, the pub pulled its final pint and shut out the pandemic-stricken world outside. You can get the latest WalesOnline newsletters e-mailed to you directly for free by signing up here.
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Its owners, Bill and Meima Evans, had kept the pub open when allowed to do so during different periods following the outbreak of coronavirus in March 2020, but they understandably decided less than a year and a half later that it was time for a change, a time for retirement, having run the old place successfully since 1984. Through nobody’s fault, another rural gem had bitten the dust. Closed. Gone. Full of empty kegs and endless memories.
While there is a rugby club up the road which is still operating, the Crymych Arms was the village’s only pub, and it had become the only social outlet for many. But now, thanks to a group of locals who recognise that a part of Crymych died when the pub shut, a plan has formed to resuscitate it and put it back at the forefront of village life. A month ago, a public meeting was held at the local Market Hall to gauge if there would be any interest in buying the pub, not just as an investment, but to reopen it, restock it, and run it for the community. More than 40 people attended the meeting and at its end it was decided that an ambitious plan would proceed.
Those behind it will now form a ‘community benefit society’ with the aim of raising more than £300,000 which will be used to purchase the pub, its stock and to carry out some work inside. The problem with ambitious plans is they are not always achievable, but Crymych can take hope from the fact that this kind of venture has worked in recent times, and in nearby communities, including at the inimitable Tafarn Sinc, nine miles away in the village of Rhosebush, and at the 141-year-old town shop in Newport, Pembrokeshire. It can happen, it can work, and the hope in Crymych is that it will do so again.
“When you lose a pub you lose touch with people,” said Cris Tomos, one of the driving forces behind the initiative. Mr Tomos is a local community councillor and asset co-ordinator at PLANED, a community-led organisation which has experience in exactly this kind of project. “A lot of elderly people used to come here for a meal, and that ability to socialise, to sit down and be with other people has been lost. It’s a real issue moving forward, both socially and economically. Local pubs and local shops are just not there and I think it’s something that the country in a wider context needs to address. We’ve had success with this type of share offer before so we called a meeting before Christmas just to see if it was something we could try and do. A lot of people turned up and everyone said ‘yeah, let’s go for it’.”
The way the share offering works is that everyone and anyone is able to buy a share, or shares, and therefore own their own part of the Crymych Arms. One share costs £100 (which can even be paid for in instalments), and people can buy as many as they like up to a maximum value of £100,000 per person. Crucially, one share will equal one vote, so everyone will have a say in the pub’s future and the way it is run, regardless of the size of their respective stake. A business plan is being drawn up to look at the rewarding of dividends, or dividend vouchers to be spent in the pub, to shareholders, and those involved will be able to sell shares at a later date, after an initial period when the company establishes itself and hopefully makes a success of the venture.
Crucially, explained Mr Tomos, those investing will be buying more than a pub. “We will be issuing a share offer with a full business plan so that people will see the complete details of what they’re buying. But as well as the pub itself, people will own part of a building, which includes two flats to the side and above the pub. Whatever you are putting in, you know you are buying bricks and mortar so if it didn’t work out in the long-term we can sell it and people would still own their share of the building.”
Another key part of the proposal is making the Crymych Arms more than just a pub - it will be the home of Crymych FC. The football club was only formed in 2019 but it has already achieved success by winning a local cup and gaining promotion from Division 2 to Division 1 in the league it joined less than four years ago. The club currently uses the hall in the nearby village of Hermon as its base, but those that run it want its home to be in the centre of Crymych.
“You don’t see some people here now for weeks or even months since the pub shut,” said Robin Davies, who is also a community councillor and the secretary of the football club. “I don’t think it’s very good for people’s mental health, and it’s the same when schools and shops close in villages up and down the country. Villages need these things. The idea to try and buy the pub happened one night when a few of us were having a pint after a game. It had been shut for a while so we started talking about reopening it and basically using it as a football club and a pub.
"The current owners are 100% behind the idea because they want it to reopen as it was - they’d be delighted if it came off. They’ve looked after the pub very well over the years and structurally the building is fine - all we would have to do is a bit of a redesign on the inside. They don’t want to sell it to a developer to turn it all into a house or flats because if that happens then the village pub is gone forever.”
So far, just a month after that initial meeting, more than £80,000 worth of pledges have already been made from people desperate to save the pub and own a share of it. The hope is that more people will come forward and enough money can be raised to make this dream a reality. There’s also the possibility of support by way of grant funding from the UK Government’s Community Ownership Fund, which could provide thousands in match funding as part of its Levelling Up programme.
The hope is that the share offer can be launched next month and Mr Tomos, having been involved in this type of project before, considers it realistic that the Crymych Arms could be open by the end of the summer, in time for the beginning of the next football season. The people behind the plan will continue to move forward and raise as much money as they possibly can, and increase awareness by contacting different people - including Wales footballing hero and former Crymych schoolboy Joe Allen - to see if they want to get involved in any way.
“The cost of living crisis has made things harder for people,” said Mr Davies. “With this place open, people will be able to access warmth, food, and some companionship too. From a community point of view it’s vital that we can reopen the pub because so many people used to depend on it. Without it, people are staying in and they don’t get that opportunity to connect, to see others.”
Anyone is invited to get involved and become a part owner of a historic pub that once served generations of happy punters from Crymych, rural Pembrokeshire and Cererdgion and beyond. For more information on how you can get involved, you can visit here. “It has been done before and in some places there are several community pubs, and we should be looking to create a network of them so that we can all support each other,” said Mr Tomos. “With pubs like this, you either have to do something or you will lose it, so we are doing something."
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