Last week was a bad week for Brighton boozers.

The Cuthbert and Newmarket Arms have been lost to housing, while property vultures appear to be circling over the Rose Hill Tavern.

Whatever you think of these pubs, once they are lost, they are gone forever from the community and we need more than smart phones and shopping to nourish the soul.

However, there’s one place that is nearly ready to open four years after being closed down.

Thanks to a few pig-headed residents, a superhero vicar, hundreds of shareholders and a Government grant, the old Bevendean Pub has been transformed and is set to become the first co-op pub on a housing estate in the UK.

Building work has now finished but we need just a bit more money to get us over the finishing line.

Instead of brick dust we can nearly taste our first pint.

Our strapline has always been that it will be so much more than just a pub and one of the reasons we got the grant was because of letters of support from groups as diverse as the local Brownies, NHS, Albion In The Community and residents groups.

It will be a community hub, something for everyone, somewhere for people to meet, to chew over the day’s events and get to know our neighbours.

We still need £40,000 to kit out the kitchen, fit and stock the bar, put in the cellar and build the pub garden.

So can you help? Have you brought your share yet? Could you afford to invest in a few more? This is your chance to not only be part of a little piece of history but also play your part in bucking the trend of 18 pubs closing every week.

Come along to our drop-in day on Sunday, April 27, between noon and 4pm and see what a group of determined people can achieve.

Warren Carter, Hodshrove Road, Brighton

A pub landlords says...

I own the freehold (mortgaged) of a freehouse.

We have had our pub for 12 years and put all our savings into it. Our choice, I agree. Through no fault of our own, the greedy bankers made a mess of our economy (forget your politics) worldwide. This happened and we have had to deal with it.

It makes my blood boil when I read ill-informed comments about us landlords ripping people off and making a fortune on soft drinks.

As Terry Williams points out (Letters, April 17), our water is not free. My cordials are not free. I make about the same profit per pint on beer and cordials when you factor everything in. It takes staff as long to serve a properly prepared lime and soda as it does to serve a pint of ale. I perhaps serve ten lime and sodas a day: happy days, I’ve just made a tenner!

We offer a service, we offer a comfortable environment, we offer a shoulder to cry on, we support local community causes; we are all sorts of things but we are not profiteers.

Our community pub pays nearly £900 a month in business rates – we don’t even get our rubbish collected for that.

Sky TV costs more than £1,000 per month, electricity £400 per month. I could go on...

As landlords we need to make the public more aware of the costs which are out of our control so that people continue to back us.

Steve Bennett, landlord of the Stanley Arms in Portslade