In the first of a series of articles by those leading the campaign to save The George, Jackie Clune questions Wetherspoon’s decision to sell the much-loved, affordable pub
The George pub in Wanstead is many things to many people. Standing in all its Victorian glory on the corner of the High Street, right opposite Wanstead Tube station, it is a local landmark, a meeting place, a lively hub for celebration, for first legal pints, for later-in-life lunches, for nursing mums, families feeding kids on a budget, for students, for workers seeking a swift one after falling off the train, for community meetings, for good times and for bad times. It is the closest thing we have to a community centre. It is a multi-cultural, inter-generational beacon of life in modern London.
The decision by JD Wetherspoon to sell The George prompted a petition by local people with over 3,300 signatures to date – but strong feeling has not dissuaded them and the pub remains under offer, with economic unviability cited as the reason. The chain’s ‘pile ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap’ business model is the reason everyone loves a Spoons; most people can afford to buy a round there without taking out a small mortgage. Even my kids have bought me a drink in The George!
Wetherspoon’s net profits for 2023 were just shy of £60m across its 873 pubs, so why are they intent on asset-stripping on our turf? I’m not usually one to champion the homogenous chain – for all their competitive pricing and talk of inclusivity, they are still a for-profit, Brexit-championing big business – but Wetherspoon has been gifted prime sites in historical buildings for four decades now and to suddenly pull the (bespoke) carpet from under us feels like a dereliction of duty.
We must resist. We have to try to stop the allegedly inevitable pricing out of local people. Bad enough that our kids will never be able to afford to live independently near where they grew up – at least let them be able to afford a burger and a pint. It is not inevitable that profit must always be king. If we are to resist London becoming one big unaffordable playground for the uber-rich, fights such as these must be fought and won.
Our High Street is great – we have several boujee chains and some really successful independent businesses – but in my 20 years in Wanstead, I have seen some awful closures. Restaurants, cafes, the launderette. When we first got here as part of the first wave of the Hackney overflow, we had a Woolworths! I truly feel we are impoverished by not having somewhere to buy lightbulbs, affordable kids’ school shoes and Pick n’ Mix under the same roof. No doubt commercial pressures and changes in shopping habits have contributed to these closures, but if we are to keep our glorious and diverse community, we must not bow to what they pretend is inevitable. There has been an affordable pub on the site since 1716. Let’s not be the ones that let it die.
