Planning appeal rules owner of East Yorkshire village pub The Traveller's Rest does not have to rebuild 1970s toilet block - but still cannot demolish entire building

During late 2019 and early 2020, most of the Travellers Rest - the only pub in the village of Long Riston - was demolished.

A single-storey wing of the 200-year-old pub was left standing which has recently been done up as the small, standalone Micro Pig Bar, which opens on June 28.

East Riding Council took enforcement action in December 2020 and said the building should be recreated "as similar as possible" to how it used to be.

That included rebuilding a single-storey 1970s toilet block as without them, the pub was unlikely to be viable. .

Inspector Elizabeth Pleasant agreed the toilets were necessary, but she said she hadn't been given any substantive evidence as to why they couldn't be put elsewhere.

She said a customer toilet was already being provided in the Micro Pig Bar.

She agreed with developer Wayne Low that it was "excessive" for the council to insist on the internal layout and signage to be reinstated, as this could normally be done without planning permission.

While an enforcement notice could require a developer to rebuild "as similar as possible", she pointed out that the Town and Country Planning Act also states that the replacement "may differ from the demolished building in any respect" and if it had been altered "(it) would not have constituted a breach of planning control".

Ms Pleasant concluded that Mr Low's appeal "should succeed in part only".

She granted planning permission for the demolition of the toilet block, but upheld East Riding Council's enforcement notice, with corrections and variations.

She refused to grant planning permission for the total demolition of the pub - currently the subject of a legal case.

Mr Low said he'd sold the Micro Pig Bar to a "really nice" couple from the village, Nick Purdy and Sarah Stonier, and it could take 30 people inside.

He said in the past 10 years he'd saved, reopened or built from scratch, more than five pubs "all of which remain open today".

But he added that the rebuilt building on the pub site “can’t be opened as a pub as it doesn’t have a licence – it was amended to reflect the new refurbished pub next door”.