In a remote south-west corner of Western Australia, the tiny town of Gnowangerup is the latest in a line of regional communities banding together to save their local pub.<\/p>\n
Built in 1912, the 100-year-old Gnowangerup Hotel will change hands later this year after the building and business were purchased by a local cooperative.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sitting at the foot of the Stirling Range, the sheep and grain farming town 350 kilometres south of Perth has a population of fewer than 1,300 people.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Richard House is selling shares in the Gnowangerup Hotel to bolster community support for the pub. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
Chair of the community cooperative, Richard House, said it was selling ownership shares to connect locals in the town to the hotel and each other.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s good for mental health that they can go there on an evening, after work and go talk about issues that are happening or happening at the farm,” he said.<\/p>\n
“A pub isn’t just a place to drink, you’ve got to have meals \u2026 families have got to be able to go there.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
An architect’s impression of the Gnowangerup pub after planned renovations.\u00a0 (Supplied)<\/p>\n
More pubs are going co-op<\/p>\n
Thirty kilometres down the road, the Broomehill Village Co-op purchased its local pub in 2022 after it closed in 2019.<\/p>\n
The hotel has been closed for about six years, but plans are underway to renovate the historic building and reopen it.<\/p>\n
Broomehill Village Co-op chairman Scott Thomas said a township of 200 people now featured 96 pub shareholders.\u00a0<\/p>\n
North of Broomehill, Kulin and Nyabing also purchased their respective pubs under cooperative models, both of which are up and running.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Broomehill’s Imperial Hotel was built in 1902. This photo was taken circa 1910. (Supplied: State Library of WA)<\/p>\n
Professor Amanda Davies, a social demographer at the University of Western Australia, said places to connect were of particular importance in regional communities. \u00a0<\/p>\n
“Community pubs and sporting associations are super important to rural communities for the impact that they can have on social wellbeing across a longer period,” she said.<\/p>\n
Professor Davies said the roles of the local pub had changed in recent times, a factor that had led to the rise of the co-op model.<\/p>\n
“It’s not just a matter of survival \u2014 where a community group is purchasing a pub, they’re changing the nature of that space and it’s having some really wonderful impacts across quite a lot of communities,” she said.<\/p>\n
“With high levels of connectivity, there is a change in dynamic going on across our society.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Professor Amanda Davies says high house prices are pushing people back to small country towns. (ABC News: Julian Robins)<\/p>\n
A dying breed<\/p>\n
But the model does not necessarily work for all communities.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At Woodanilling, 260 kilometres south of Perth, Stephen Jeffries was forced to close the doors of his Woodanilling Tavern in a town of fewer than 200 people.<\/p>\n
“Financially, it just got too hard,” he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Broomehill Village Co-op purchased the local pub in 2022 after it was closed in 2019. (ABC Great Southern: Rhys Jones\u00a0)<\/p>\n
Mr Jeffries said copying what worked in one regional community would not necessarily translate into success in another. \u00a0<\/p>\n
“The key is adapting the model to fit the town’s size, needs, and resources \u2014 not just copying what works in a bigger centre,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Communities like Gnowangerup are showing that with the right planning and support, these models can thrive and keep vital services alive in the bush.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mark Shenton says the cooperative pub model helped spread risk in a volatile market. (Supplied\u00a0)<\/p>\n
Small Business Development Corporation CEO Mark Shenton said that adaptability and meeting community needs were vital to success.<\/p>\n
“In a town like Gnowangerup, with around 1,260 residents across the shire and about 568 in the town itself, the margin for error is small. We’re seeing more regional businesses experiment with hybrid models,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It’s all about spreading risk and creating multiple income streams, which makes a business more resilient in a small market.<\/p>\n
“In a place like Gnowangerup, success comes from locals backing locals, and models that give the community real skin in the game.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a remote south-west corner of Western Australia, the tiny town of Gnowangerup is the latest in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99,142891,142889,142886,142890,142887,142888,33815],"class_list":["post-238908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-co-operative-hotel","tag-community-cooperative","tag-community-pub","tag-country-hotel","tag-country-pub","tag-regional-living","tag-rural-communities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}