Wednesday 20 November 2013

Cains brewery village plans approved

Cains workers demonstrating after being
sacked without notice or compensation
The plans by the Dusanj brothers to convert the old Cains Brewery site in Liverpool into a brewery village and tourist venue have been approved. The brewery was closed 6 months ago with debts of £8 million (previous post here) and the workers laid off in a particularly shabby way without compensation (previous post here). The BBC report briefly describing the plans and their approval by the council is here.

Both the Liverpool mayor, Joe Anderson and the MP for Liverpool Riverside, Louise Ellman, have welcomed the proposed redevelopment, even though partners and operators for the cinema, hotel and supermarket have yet to be found. The BBC article states that the existing Brewery Tap pub would also be restored to produce traditional ales. This sounds like a microbrewery to me. One of the owners, Sudarghara Dusanj, claims the redevelopment will attract 2.5 million visitors per year, benefiting the city's economy by £25 million. If you accept that, consider the following:
  • The Dusanj brothers have gone bankrupt twice in five years, not a track record to give potential investors and partners confidence.
  • The brothers originally stated that Cains beers would be brewed elsewhere under licence. While this is not an adequate substitute for a brewery on the site, it never happened.
  • The Cains brand was run into the ground after the first bankruptcy and I was told that the beers were made using the cheapest ingredients they could find. Previously good beers became very poor.
  • 38 staff were made redundant without payment and had to claim payouts from a Government fund.
We're never going to get the brewery back as it was, so I hope this scheme succeeds, but given the brothers' record, I'm not putting any money on it.

3 comments:

  1. My thoughts exactly. The Dusanj brothers should not be allowed to run another business after the Cains debacle

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sooner its completed the better and hopefully all you rednevs will be barred from the start. You and Unite have done your best to shut this city down but you won't..because WE the peeps who don't need 'political' motivation won't allow it

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a load of garbled rubbish!

    "Sooner it's completed the better ..." - so you trust the Dusanj's business record to make this work, even though they have twice gone bankrupt with the brewery?

    "All you rednevs will be barred ..." - so you believe in a police state where people whom you don't like can have their movements restricted.

    "You and Unite ..." - I have no connections with Unite, who in this case simply tried to ensure that the workforce received payoffs after being sacked with no notice, which is a legitimate job for a union. By the way, the workers were mostly Liverpool "peeps", to use your baby talk, or don't those particular "peeps" count?

    "Shut the city down ..." - don't believe everything you read in the Daily Mail. Industrial action in recent years has been at all-time low levels. In 2011, there were fewer strike days than there were at the height of the blitz. (official figures) This applies across the country and includes Liverpool.

    "We the peeps ... won't allow it ..." - well, you won't need to because no union wants to close this city down. But even if your fantasy of unions wanting to destroy Liverpool were true, precisely what would you and your non-political "peeps" do about it?

    As usual, the most obnoxious comments come from someone who is so brave that he hides behind the skirts of anonymity.

    ReplyDelete

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