{"id":298,"date":"2019-05-22T13:11:45","date_gmt":"2019-05-22T13:11:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/?p=298"},"modified":"2019-05-22T13:22:46","modified_gmt":"2019-05-22T13:22:46","slug":"camra-campaigners-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/2019\/05\/22\/camra-campaigners-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"CAMRA Campaigners of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The good people of St Albans had a terrible shock on 1 April. Two of the city\u2019s most famous pubs, the Boot and Ye Old Fighting Cocks closed down. The Boot, Grade II-listed and dating from 1500, had a fence around it bearing a sign saying \u2018Pub closed due to unsustainable business rates\u2019 while Ye Olde Fighting Cocks, with origins in the 8th century and possibly the oldest pub in Britain, had a sign saying that it would be turned into residential properties with a luxury spa. It was, of course, an April Fool\u2019s prank but one with a serious message. The Boot\u2019s business rates had increased by 87% to \u00a331,000 a year while Ye Olde Fighting Cocks\u2019 increased by a massive 280% to \u00a351,000 a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This set off a chain of events that has led to the owner of the Boot, Sean Hughes, and his campaigning colleague, Christo Tofalli, who runs the Ye Olde Fighting Cocks, being given CAMRA\u2019s Campaigner of the Year award. They had started their Save St Albans Pubs Group in 2017 following that year\u2019s business rates review. They began with a petition and secured the support of local MP Anne Main. They then encouraged both pub owners and pub users to write to the Government and secured a detailed meeting with Treasury officials. The campaign subsequently went national with the formation of the Save UK Pubs network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nomination for the award was made by CAMRA\u2019s South Hertfordshire branch. This included local resident and leading beer writer Roger Protz who said, \u201cSean and Christo\u2019s efforts to campaign on this important subject are truly inspirational. They\u2019re shining examples of how you don\u2019t need to be well connected in the halls of Westminster or the head of a large campaign organisation to bring about change. I\u2019m incredibly proud to be a St Albans resident and see my locals campaign on such an important national cause.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u00a9 South Herts CAMRA <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sean Hughes, landlord of the Boot said, \u201cWe are delighted to collect this award on behalf of all St Albans landlords who deserve recognition with this accolade. We set up the group to show the Government that this kind of taxation rise is not only unfair but is also destroying people\u2019s businesses and leading to pub closures. The campaign has grown national and we will not stop until we have fair business rates for all pubs in the UK. We encourage the rest of the country to get involved and we strongly urge the Government to cap rates increases and launch an urgent review of business rates on pubs before it is too late \u2013 once a pub is gone, it is gone forever.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The award was presented at CAMRA\u2019s recent Members\u2019 Weekend in Dundee and received by South Herts branch secretary Steve Bury who passed it on to the winners on 10 May at the Boot, 4 Market Place, AL3 5DG.
Tony Hedger from CAMRA sources<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The good people of St Albans had a terrible shock on 1 April. Two of the city\u2019s most famous pubs, the Boot and Ye Old Fighting Cocks closed down. The… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-camra-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":306,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298\/revisions\/306"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}