The Dreadnought, Leith, has won an influential award at the PubAid Community Pub Hero Awards 2024.
Owner Roisin Therese was at the ceremony in the Houses of Commons to accept the award for being the best Community Regular Hero pub in Scotland. The award celebrates the work that the pub does to fundraise or support the community.
The pub saw competition from over 1,000 entries nationwide for the prestigious pub industry awards, now in their fifth year.
On winning the award, Roisin Therese said: “I am very pleased to accept this award in recognition of the work we have done through the Dreadnought and the Save The Pride Bridge campaign to promote queer visibility and representation.
“Despite the many challenges of running a pub during the last few years, we hope to continue to provide a community hub and to support local causes through our fundraising, food bank and winter clothes collection drives, and engagement with other local organisations. We will continue to provide a safe and inclusive space that celebrates the queer community.”
The pub won because it led the Save the Pride Bridge campaign to help protect a local landmark from being demolished. The Pride Bridge is a community art project in a public space that is important to local residents. It is painted by a diverse group of locals and has become a renowned LGBTQ landmark, and the first of its kind in Edinburgh.
Des O’Flanagan, co-founder of PubAid, added: “The annual event is always very special for us and all the pubs who made it through to the finals.
“It is wonderful to hear so many stories of Publicans who do so much for their local communities and it’s heart-warming that pubs raise so much money for local and national charities and their regular customers are so generous when the cost of living makes things tough for many people.
“All 1,000 nominations we received are worthy of a congratulations but a special mention needs to be for those who made it through to the finals. The standard or entry this year has been so high that it gave our expert judges some difficult decisions.”
PubAid, which organises the awards in association with Matthew Clark and the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group, refreshed the awards and created more categories to congratulate more community pubs throughout the UK. There were 33 finalists in total across five categories.
Blue Ball in England won the Community Support Hero award for its region.