THE landlord of a popular Lake District pub has hit out at a brewery after it announced it would not be renewing leases of several tenants.

Marstons has taken the decision not to renew any of the Jennings Pub leases and will take over the running Oddfellows Arms, The George Hotel, The Bank Tavern, the Twa Dogs in Keswick and the Royal Oak in Braithwaite.

The landlord of the Oddfellows Arms, Carl Maloney, has hit out at the company after the news came without warning.

He said: "It has completely broke us. We've been here for two generations since 1982. We had no warning whatsoever.

"We missed a phone call and then the following morning we had two letters saying they were not renewing the license and saying they were going to take over.They've never done that to this building. It was totally out of the blue."

Worse still, Carl says the pub company had recently talked him into a refurbishment of the Oddfellows at considerable personal cost. The work was completed just weeks before the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

He continued: "They had just talked us all into refurbishing. We've put or life-savings into this place.

"We have all just survived the Covid-19 lockdowns, and are now working under difficult restrictions.

"At the moment, we're out on March 1 next year. They don't have to give us anything for the business we've built up over the last 39 years. They just have to give us two years rateable value."

Carli believes the issue is part of a wider problem in the industry, and accused pub companies of taking advantages of loop holes in the law.

He added: "There's no company more immoral than a pub company. There's a lot of breweries that are offering people really good deals on three and five year leases. The tennants will put their money into improving the place, and then get told to go and the brewery just get somebody new in. These short term leases aren't protected leases."

Carl has started a petition calling for the Government to change the landlord and tenant act which can be signed at change.org/p/house-of-commons-change-the-landlord-and-tenant-act-preventing-pub-companies-evicting-business-owners.

Marstons have been contacted for comment.