A victory for people power

It was William Blake that said: "A good local pub has much in common with a church, except that a pub is warmer, and there's more conversation."

You might think that the status of both venues as a hub of the community has fallen since Blake's days. Churchgoing is certainly not what it was, and the statistic from the Campaign from Real Ale that 18 pubs are closing every week is one of the more depressing figures I have heard.

The Ivy House, Nunhead

There are those who say that pubs only close if they're no good. Now there are poor pubs that have closed, but I can think of plenty more decent and even excellent pubs that have shut their doors because the owners decided they could make more money by selling them for housing, or to a supermarket, or just because the tenants of tied pubs struggled against high overheads or crippling beer prices.

The Ivy House in Nunhead was a great pub, with a proud history of live music. It's currently closed, but it shows what can be achieved with a determined local effort. With the help of the Campaign for Real Ale locally, it was granted Grade II listed status by English Heritage, thus hindering any plans to turn it into flats. Then it was listed as an asset of community value under the Localism Act, becoming one of the first buildings in the country to be saved by the act. That meant that community groups have to be given first refusal to buy the building. Now the building has been bought by campaigners, with the help of grant and loan finance, and is set to become London's first co-operative pub.

They still need cash to reopen the building, and are asking for investment via a share issue. There's also a public meeting at the pub on April 14 2013 from 10.30am-12.30pm.

A band playing at the Ivy House in happier times