RUNNING a pub involves endless late nights working when all around you are relaxing and having fun.

It is a thankless task, often for little in the way of financial reward. Yet in the countryside, pubs are the last lynchpin of rural communities. As village shops give way to town supermarkets, pubs are the often the last remaining local amenity, a place where the new villager can meet old.

However, the harsh reality of trickling customer numbers, low profit margins on beer, reduced visitors during foot and mouth and poor transport means that rural pubs are closing at the rate of six a week, to be converted into homes or bed and breakfast businesses.

In Herefordshire and Worces-tershire, many of the rural pubs have already been lost and more are in danger going the same way. In some villages, local communities are beginning to realise their importance.

In Brooms Green, between Ledbury and Dymock, a group of locals desperate to have back their Horseshoe Inn, sold in May and subsequently closed, have formed an action group that will be objecting to the building's proposed conversion into a bed and breakfast.

In Bringsty, near Bromyard, an action group raised more than £150,000 to buy the Live and Let Live. A manager was even lined up, but their offer was refused and the pub closed because of a lack of business.

Now, four years later, Live and Let Live owner Shirley Cook is again applying for planning permission to convert the bar into a private home, claiming the property has not received interest from commercial buyers.

Mark Haslam, a local representative for the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), has been involved in the battle, supporting the Bringsty Action Group as it raised the money to form a non-profit business to run the pub.

He said: "The Live and Let Live is a place of national importance. It's over 250 years old. If we let a thousand pubs close, we don't want that to be one of them. The locals feel very strongly about it. If they weren't, then CAMRA wouldn't be interested.

"Now we're going to go into another planning inquiry, which is a waste of taxpayers' money. It ties up our time and causes everybody stress. We have identified people who want to buy it. All CAMRA want is to see the pub reopen and all the residents want is their pub back."

Recognising that rural pubs are in danger of becoming extinct, the Government has said it will provide rate relief and planning legislation is also becoming more pub friendly. But Dymock landlord Ralph Palmer said the help has not yet come.

He and his wife, Sally, lease the Beauchamp Arms, which was bought by the parish council in Dymock in 1997 in an innovative move to save it from closure.

"It's working very well," he said. "It's a great success. The village took out a mortgage with the county council and I lease it from them. We effectively pay the mortgage.

"It's still a struggle. It's not making a fortune because it's a rural pub, because of foot and mouth and September 11. What we really need is help from the Government. I shouldn't be paying rates at all because the pub is a village amenity, much like the post office. People use it for meetings and for all the things that aren't provided for the village. We're also supposed to be getting help with foot and mouth but it hasn't come yet.

"I do it because I like to provide the facility to the village. I don't want to see the pub close and we haven't reached crisis point yet. The locals keep it going. I let them know when we're struggling and they rally round. The villagers know if they don't use it, they will lose it and it's the only one within a large area."

He said that many rural pubs did not have the surrounding populous to keep them going.

"Dymock was different. They did something about it and they have 700 people that live within the parish, which is enough to keep it going."