It now fails to amaze me at the crass stupidity & expectations of estate agents cum auctioneers-and this is a perfect example!
The Blue Anchor pub at Seasalter, Kent (aim for Whitstqable and then chuck a left in) is up for sale at £225,000 + VAT…if you please! I happen to have a friend who lives Whitstable way and he tells me the place is a dump, the 4 bedroomed flat above is a pig-sty and that the ‘shops’ closeby are all boarded up (verified by google earth!) . The Blue Anchor itself looks in urgent need of refurbishment but more to the point, why is this prominetly located seaside pub closed and now up for sale? Back to ‘Bob’…
“Simpul ennit” he crowed, “used to be ‘eavin’ here afore that there smokey ban thing came in, ‘ad some good regular punters anall he did, come ‘ere every year regular as clockwork many of ’em did. Then it just stopped. People stays in them caravans now sit outside with cans an’ a fag, don’t need a boozer not no more”.
Hard work keeping up with Bob so I put him on loudspeaker!
“How much they want for it then?” he enquired – there was a stunned silence when I manged to tell him. “They’s barmy” he yelled ” I bets they ‘ave to spend £50/£60,000 on the ****hole to make it openable ag’in. I knows the upstairs needs startin’ from scratch cos I fixed a leak there last winter for a couple of pints-local plumber wanted £100-dik’ed! Naaaah, they won’t be a sellin’ that place for that money. I’d give ’em the Veeee Aaaaay Teeee for the place and turn it into a cheapo family restaurant (day time) an’ a cheapo bar night time, an’ I’d do up the back of the place for all them smokers wot now sits in/ouitside their caravans. It’s like a mortuary ‘ere now”
There endeth the lesson folks. It doesn’t matter what people say about culture changes, recessions, and all the other crap they spout, Bob has laid it on the line – pure and simple. Holiday park pub, on a major thoroughfare, plenty of car parking facilities-system going well. Along comes Mr Smoke Ban and system collapses pronto. Google it, look at the area, the potential is there for all to see-and it is not ‘all’ caravans either, there are plenty of private dwellings nearby too!
It is a sad, sad world we now live in, for governments have killed off thousands of businesses over a wisp of smoke, they have added thousands to the unemployment queues, they want to add many thousands to the already overburdened retirement welfare state (which they blatantly can’t afford) yet happily donate £74m to Pakistan because a drop of rain fell…err where were the WHO when that happened?
We live in a dying society where carcasses (The Blue Anchor) are priced up beyond what even the wildest imaginative brain could do so-and the Blue Anchor pub at Seasalter is only one of 37 R&L Inns which have been put up for sale by estate agents Christie + Co.
The pub chain has gone bust and administrator PricewaterhouseCoopers has ordered the sale! Out of interest 126 R&L pubs are already up for sale.
Who will start me off at a ‘tenner the lot’?
(Link to Story no Longer Available)