The New River Arms, January 2017

The New River Arms had not been successful for a number of years and subsequently lead to its closure.

The previous owners of the New River Arms public house decided to put the site up for sale after determining that it was no longer financially viable to keep it open as a public house, due to lack of custom

Petitions to save the pub had failed and numerous plans for the site had been proposed but have all been rejected since its closure.

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Hugh Jorgan;337945 Could be made into a souvenir shop and cafeteria.[/QUOTE said:

Sadly this place was on the road to ruin when they gutted it and put in that hideous, cheerless modern interior. If a pub serving food alongside booze cannot turn a profit, then no cafeteria/souvenir emporium is going to earn enough to pay the business rates on this very large establishment. In my student days I got a job in my local pub - well one would be daft to turn down free beer and extra money as well, it was a very old public house with a number of small friendly rooms and central bar area that went into all the rooms, except the 'snug'. The manager/landlord was a lazy bugger and used to scrounge off to his mate's hotel across the square every night to get plastered and escape the wife. The pub was heaving every night with young and old and we sold vast amounts of draught Double Diamond (which had not been on the market long and had been brewed to compete with Watney's Red Barrel). Work eventually took me to Derby and then by chance, eventually back to the town of my student days. I of course soon made contact with my old watering hole and what a shock awaited; the downstairs had been gutted to leave one huge cheerless room where a few customers were to be found standing around. I eventually got to know the young manager quite well and he was shocked when I told him that his monthly combined draught beer sales were less than half of the draught DD sales we used to make. Some years and a brewery takeover later, the vast open plan bar area was broken up into four smallish rooms centred round the bar area - the pub is once again friendly, not full of TV monitors/game machines etc and is very busy. A place to meet one's mates for a pint and a catch up!

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