Robinsons offers licensees further support

Robinsons Brewery has announced further financial support for its tenanted pub estate from January 2022, including a 10% rent reduction for the first month of the year.   

As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, the brewer and pub operator's financial support has amounted to £6.75m in rent, as well as all the costs of gone-off beer.

The move makes Robinsons the latest brewer/operator to assess rent amounts, with Kent's Shepherd Neame announcing a similar stance last week.

In a letter to its tenanted pubs, William Robinson, managing director of the operator's pub division, wrote: “We are realistic that arrival of the new variant will make this winter a more challenging time that any of us had expected a month ago. With that in mind, we have made two quick decisions which will support your businesses. First, we are delaying our annual price increase by a month to March, despite incurring extraordinary production and raw material price hikes. Second, we will be reducing your rent in January by 10%.”

Alongside this, the brewery intends to join others in pushing for more permanent government support.

The company has written to a number of MPs to ask them to write to the chancellor requesting both short-term and longer-term pub specific support. 

The requests include to immediately introduce a targeted furlough scheme for hospitality; extend the VAT reduction to the end of 2022; and cancel business rates until April 2022, with the removal the £110,000 cap. 

“We have supported our great pub estate thus far and will continue to support those who work with us," adds Robinson. "The financial stability of our extended family of tenanted licensees is crucial to plans for us to invest our way out of this pandemic, so we will continue to do what we can, but recognise that the government is going to have to step in too.”

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