THE HOME COTTAGE - TIME FOR CHANGE?
Canvassing the Redstone Hill residents on the future for the home cottage pub
The Home Cottage pub has changed. What was a small, locally owned, community pub has become a corporate behemoth that refuses to make even small investments to reduce the impact on our local community. This site has been set up to canvas the local residents of Redstone Hill on what the future for this pub should be. We do not think the Home Cottage should be closed - but we do think the time has come for this pub's corporate owners to face up to their responsibilities and make the reasonable changes we have asked of them. Do you agree? We want to know what you think!
WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?
"I would agree that a 3m fence would be effective" - our expert consultant
For the past two years, a group of local residents have engaged with the pub to ask for some reasonable changes to be made. We have asked them to limit the hours they keep their pub garden open. We have asked them to manage the foul language, aggressive patrons and to reduce the noise nuisance this pub causes. What used to be a small, local pub, which was an asset to the local community, has become a blight. After many of our requests were rebutted, in 2018 we asked the company that owns the pub, Young's Brewery, to install three meter high acoustic fencing to reduce the noise impact on our community. They refused. The same group of residents then offered to pay 20% of the cost. Young's still refused - despite admitting in meetings that the experts who had visited the site confirmed that installing such fencing would make a significant improvement to nearby residents. We even said we'd be willing to consider funding half of the cost - but nothing changed.
CAN YOUNG'S AFFORD IT? ASK PATRICK DARDIS.
Young's earns tens millions of pounds of profits each year. The management team, lead by Patrick Dardis, get paid millions each year. On our estimates, the executive at Young's get paid more than 40 times the average salary of a Young's employee. We think they can afford the changes we are asking
£61 million pounds of cash generation in 2018- but they refused to pay even £7,000 or reduce the garden opening hours by one hour a day...
The Home Cottage is not an independent pub. It is owned by Young's brewery - a listed company worth hundreds of millions of pounds. Many of us know and like the staff at the home cottage - this is not their fault. The manager has even agreed that he understands our concerns and recognizes that what we are suggesting would make a huge improvement to our local community. But Young's won't do anything about it. We have experienced the same thing that many local communities have experienced with Young's - other groups have had to fight the same battle. Young's can afford to make changes. Including "matching shares" Young's paid their executive team around £2 million last year. Their own annual report implies that an average Young's pub makes between £400,000 and £800,000 of adjusted earnings per year. But they refuse to pay even half the cost of installing acoustic fences. They refuse to close their garden even one hour earlier to help our children get to sleep on hot summer's evenings. Do you think it is time for change?
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
The climate crisis will keep making this problem worse
We estimate there might be around fifty young children living within 500 meters of the Home Cottage. The climate crisis means the weather is only going to get hotter. Parents face the choice between leaving windows open and our children being kept awake by the loud, often foul, language from the pub, or keeping those windows closed and making our children so hot they don't sleep either.
They deserve peace and quiet and a good night's sleep. Young's profits are not more important than the well being of our children.
There are three things you can do.
Tell us what you think! Email ReviewTheCottage@Gmail.com and tell us your views. Let us know how the noise and pollution from this pub is affecting your life, and the life of your family. We are preparing the ground to apply for a licencing review - and will seek significant changes to the terms of the Home Cottage Licence if enough residents support it. We do not want to close the pub down. These problems are not the fault of the staff, or the manager - but the big corporation that owns the pub.
Secondly, tell the council. If, like us, you have been affected by the loud noise, congestion and pollution in our local community - then tell the council. The more of us that do, the greater the chance that we can enact real lasting change.
There are just two forms to fill in. Each one takes less than five minutes and you do not have to register. Your personal details will not be passed to the Home Cottage by Reigate and Banstead Council. If you fill these forms in, please tell us so we an keep track.
https://apps.reigate-banstead.gov.uk/T4W/T4W.jsp
(select "Nuisance", the post code of the Home Cottage is RH1 4AW )
https://my.reigate-banstead.gov.uk/en/service/Licensing___complaints_about_licensed_premises
Thirdly, talk to your neighbors, and our representative politicians. Our local MP, MEP and Councillor should know what you think. The easiest way to tell them is if you visit this site: