Pub Saving Award
About the Award
The Pub Saving Award recognises people that have come together to save a pub that would have otherwise been lost. It aims to secure publicity for pub-saving campaigns to encourage others to save their local too.
This award is more important than ever, as campaigners fight to keep pubs open – a vital heartbeat of communities across the UK.
Nominate a Pub
Nominations are now open and will close on 12 November 2024. Use the form below to share your story.
Eligibility and Success Criteria
Groups who are eligible for the Pub Saving Award must have carried out campaigning activity that has directly led to the prevention of a pub or pubs being closed during the year ending 1 November 2024.
The judges will consider the following factors when deliberating the winner of the award, which you may wish to reference when writing your nomination:
- How the campaign was established, how it set its objectives and how it planned to achieve them.
- How the campaign gathered evidence and information relevant to its campaign.
- How the campaign engaged with the community and with pub users.
- How the campaign achieved publicity for its aims and objectives.
- How the campaign went about lobbying and influencing decision-makers.
- The successes the campaign achieved.
If the nature of the campaign was more general than saving a specific pub, some of these factors will have more weight than others. For example, if the campaign managed to influence decision makers, this will be viewed as a major element.
Nominate a Pub
2023 Winner
Rising Sun – Save Our Sun
The Rising Sun in the village of Woodcroft, Chepstow appears on OS maps from 1870 and was brewery-owned in 2011 until high rents and inflated beer costs caused its doors to close.
This led to an epic community-led campaign to buy the pub. Started by a few locals in early 2013, the campaign finally reached fruition with the Rising Sun opening its doors again to the community in October 2022.
Within one month of the Community Share option being launched, £350,000 had been raised from 240 different investors. The group were one of only two pubs in England to be successful in obtaining a grant from the Community Ownership Fund of £175,000.
Once given the keys to the Rising Sun, the community then made a herculean effort to clean, repair and refurbish the pub. With an amazing team of local tradespeople, a volunteer project manager and more than 120 volunteers all pitching in, the doors of the Rising Sun could open once again.
2023 Runner-up
The White Horse – Stonesfield Community Pub Limited
Being the last remaining pub in the village of Stonesfield, Oxfordshire, the community rallied together to ensure the White Horse was safe from developers intent on turning it into housing. The Stonesfield Community Pub Limited was formed (as a Community Benefit Society CBS) to try to buy the pub into community ownership.
Needing to raise almost £400,000, the community embarked upon a fundraising crusade, from cake and t-shirt sales to virtual pub quizzes and Saturday morning car washing.
As well as capturing the imagination of the village, the pub’s campaign garnered international attention, making headlines in the New York Times, ABC News and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, with funding coming from California and Connecticut as well as support from the local area.
