What follows is an excerpt of an article I wrote for Pellicle, an independent drinks magazine. Pellicle is a free to read publication that routinely publishes exceptional articles from a range of engaging writers. If you value what they do, consider supporting them via Patreon for as little as £1 per month.
You can read the full article here.
Ask your friends what they associate with pubs and you’ll receive a variety of answers. Enthusiasts might name the odd pubco, others an infamous brand of so-called craft beer. Broad as these answers may be, I’d wager on nobody mentioning survivorship bias, a logical error which arises when a wider dataset is unwittingly ignored in favour of one that survived a selection process.
Instead of describing your local boozer, survivorship bias is almost exclusively used to explain social phenomena. We’re told survivorship bias is at work when teenagers, inspired by the Beyoncés and David Beckhams of this world, eschew higher education in favour of pursuing fame. Adults are just as prone to survivorship bias as exemplified by the common yet erroneous belief that most published novels become bestsellers.
As indicated, beliefs borne from survivorship bias tend to be overly optimistic. Exorbitant bills, high inflation rates and numerous closures give few working in, or writing about, pubs reason to use the O-word. Yet, even here, in one of Britain’s most demonstrably struggling sectors, survivorship bias still manages to run riot, raising the hopes and influencing the mindsets of rural people who are planning a community-ownership bid on their own local.
The media routinely publishes articles about plucky rural communities that have come together to save their local pub—each waxing lyrical about rural villages regenerated, old wounds healed, and an historic building reborn. It's enough to make even the most cynical amongst us dust off the gingham bunting and run for the local parish council. Before you do, however, it's important to consider what you won’t find printed amongst the lines of back slapping copy and triumphant quotes: context.
In a 2022 report, the Plunkett Foundation, a charity which helps rural communities in Britain to create and run community-owned businesses, reported that only one in 12 rural community-owned pub projects reached trading status. That means 91.7% of all rural community ownership pub bids failed without ever pouring a pint. These failed bids are rarely, if ever, highlighted by mainstream media. And while it's human nature to focus on the winners and allow the also-rans the dignity of anonymity, such blatant survivorship bias risks distorting our perception. If we’re not careful, soon everybody looks set to become the next Beyoncé.
Although you wouldn’t know it from the excerpt above, this article is directly linked to Cumbria, specifically The Fox and Hounds in Ennerdale. This pub is one of many rural boozers that stared closure in the face and, with little other choice, turned to community-ownership as a means to avoid destruction.
As my two interviewee’s (Plunkett Foundation’s Chris Cowcher and the individual who headed The Fox and Hound’s community project, Peter Maher) reveal, the reality of community-ownership is much more difficult than most believe. Challenges, drama and resulting gossip abound.
There is much to applaud about rural community pubs. However, we cannot allow the barriers to and challenges facing rural community-owned pubs to go unreported. That was the driving force behind my writing of the article. I hope you find both the article and the impulsion behind it worthwhile.
You can read the full article here.