Residents rally round to save community pub

Campaign to stop White Hart in Hamstead Marshall being sold to developers

HAMSTEAD Marshall villagers are rallying round to try and save their community’s pub from being sold to developers.

A planning application has been submitted to convert the White Hart Inn – a 16th-century country inn which has been closed since September 11 – into four homes.

In a planning statement, Fowler Architecture and Planning, acting on behalf of the applicant, says that residential conversion of the inn and its buildings is “the only means to secure a viable future for the site”.

It also blamed the pub’s decline on a low number of potential customers within walking distance and a high concentration of public houses in the locality competing for limited trade.

At a Hamstead Marshall Parish Council planning meeting on Tuesday, more than 20 residents turned up to voice their concerns that a vital community asset could be lost.

Questions were also asked as to the validity of the agent’s claims that the pub was no longer viable as a business.

The parish council said it would be objecting to the plans on the grounds that West Berkshire Council’s supplementary planning guidance states that public houses should be safeguarded.

Hamstead Marshall resident John Harris said: “It has been an inn for hundreds of years and is an important and the only real feature in the centre of this village.

“The White Hart is a well recognised landmark. Its change of use would be a loss to the community.

“It has been a popular meeting place for local groups. It is also a source of employment.”

Another, Paul Hemingway, added: “Given a period of stable management, with a food offering of reliable quality, I would have hoped that the White Hart could once again be viable as a pub/restaurant.”

Before the current owner, Stella Coulthurst, acquired the public house in 2011, the business was on the market for 18 months and closed for a year.

During the time on the market, the business was subject to only two offers, one from the current owner to operate the business, and the other from a residential property developer.

The recent application said: “Having sustained cash losses in each of the past four years since it has been operating (since 2011), The White Hart Inn can no longer be sustained by the goodwill of the owner’s resources.”

In September, Ms Coulthurst told the Newbury Weekly News that she was closing the pub until further notice while she explored options for the ‘next phase in the life of the inn’.

The chairman of West Berkshire Campaign for Real Ale, Richard Scullion, previously told the NWN that it was a “lovely community pub that should be put ahead of developers”.