Battle over homes plan on pub site

PARISH councillors are objecting to plans to turn a former pub into four homes in an East Riding village.

The Star Inn, in North Frodingham, which has stood close to the Market Cross in the village for some 200 years, closed last year following the death of landlord Tony Alderson.

His family had tried to keep the business going, but last orders were called a year ago – another victim of the national decline in the rural pub trade.

The Aldersons, who had run the pub together for 24 years, had been trying to sell it for the last four-and-a-half years.

East Riding Council’s planning committee sympathised with the family’s plight and approved plans last December to allow it to be converted into a house.

However the latest proposals, to alter the pub and split it into four units, are being opposed by the parish council, which says the new doors will open out onto a dangerous corner.

Parish council chairman Brigadier Alan Simmons said they understood the reasons behind the application, but were concerned about road safety.

He said: “It was an objection we raised two or three years ago when there was a proposal to have something like eight doors opening.

“Now it’s not so many, but it’s still dangerous as there’s virtually no room on the footway.”

The parish council also aren’t convinced there’s a need for extra housing as there have been 16 houses in the village on the market at various prices for more than a year.

The application by Dorothy Alderson states that converting the building to a single dwelling is not considered viable in the current economic climate, due to its size and scale.

They say the building will be in keeping with the street scene with a “simple” first-floor extension.

Planners are recommending the proposals are approved at a meeting in Beverley next Monday.

They state: “There may be a number of factors such as asking price or the current economic climate, which may have prevented the sale of properties which the parish council mention, but whatever the circumstances it should not prevent further dwellings from coming onto the market, particularly in a village that is identified as providing limited development.”

The village still has another pub, the Blue Post Inn.

According to the British Beer and Pub Association, 39 pubs a week are closing in the UK.

Regional secretary Lee Le Clerq said cheap supermarket alcohol – which could be bought for less than bottled water – was a factor, as was the last Government’s tax rises.

He said: “Certainly the last Government was terribly unfriendly to pubs, increasing taxation to astronomic levels and introducing red tape. The latest one is the calorie labelling of food even in pubs. That’s fine if you are buying a box that is pre-packed but it’s a nightmare for the licensee if you are making good-quality home-produced food.

“It is not surprising sadly that pubs are declining. It is all well and good trying to keep a pub open, but if the local population are not supporting it, then clearly you can’t go along like that. At the end of the day a pub’s income is based on the number of people coming in the door.”

Mr Le Clerq said there was no point trying to oppose the supermarkets’ “stack them high sell them cheap” ethos. It was down to whether the Government supported pubs.

“The new Government could assist us by reducing taxes on beer and they could make life much easier for publicans by easing off on draconian conditions.

“As long as they start supporting pubs instead of knocking pubs, then there’s a chance we will come out of it.”

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