Council slammed as fallout starts over bar closure

Brookes Bar has lost ’substantial’ amounts of money since it opened in 2022 according to a councillor who has seen confidential financial reports on the Priory Street premises.

The closure is part of the latest round of savings to be considered by the council which also includes the possible axing of town halls in Halesowen and Stourbridge.

Independent councillor Shaun Keasey, who has a business background in hospitality, said: “It was just being allowed to pour money down the drain, I don’t believe it was ever viable.

“The mismanagement is atrocious, it is not their money, it is ordinary working peoples’ money. Nobody would have invested their money in that business.”

Councillor Paul Bradley, deputy leader of Dudley council, said: “The intention was to offer a food and drink alternative to the visitors to the hall, but that simply has not been as successful as we had hoped.

“Despite everyone’s best efforts the business is making a loss, and we simply cannot allow that to happen against the backdrop of the financial pressures we are dealing with.

“This is an incredibly difficult decision, but we must make a financial one and lessen the impact on the council’s budget.”

Ethan Stafford, from Dudley’s Lib Dem group, said: “That it has taken so long to pull the plug is yet another example of this Conservative administration being blissfully unaware of the financial mess they have created and their inability to make the difficult decisions needed to get this authorities finances back on track.”

The full scale of the losses has not been revealed but is believed to run hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Dudley council’s leader, Councillor Patrick Harley, who also has a hospitality business, says new businesses like the bistro always make losses in the first two years and plans to turn the bar’s fortunes around were in place.

Councillor Harley said: “If the council was in a much better financial position we would probably have continued with the business plan and within 18 months would have turned a profit.

“Councils struggle with commercial ventures and we should have put it out for lease but unfortunately some officers let their egos get carried away.”

Councillor Keasey was more critical, he said : “I don’t think it was ever being run properly, it was just being allowed to pour money down the drain.”

Councillor Bradley says he believes the business was started with honest intentions.

He added: “As a council we are doing a lot of reviews, it is lessons learned, going forward we need to have a lot more of a handle to see what is going on.

“I don’t want to see any more projects like this without a forward business plan and a business professional being involved.”