Rising Sun pub plans withdrawn after negative response from planners

Plans to turn the Rising Sun pub in Stockcross into a couple of houses have been withdrawn.

Planning officers at West Berkshire Council were about to recommend its refusal anyway, because loss of ‘concern by the unjustified loss of the public house’.

A commercial viability study should accompany any application for redevelopment or change of use.

The planning officer says: “Evidence should be produced to show what measures have been taken to attempt to return the pub to a viable business.

“This could include details of commercial initiatives introduced, development proposals for the business etc.”

The current applicant bought the public house in April 2023.

“Was this bought as a development prospect or to use as a public house? Have the applicants attempted to run the public house since buying it?” asks the planning officer.

The withdrawn proposal is to demolish the now derelict pub building, and construct a pair of semi detached dwellings fronting Ermin Street and a single detached dwelling to the rear of the site.

“Whilst CAMRA opposes any loss of a pub - especially the last one in a village, it had been extensively marketed as a free of tie lease and with no takers the freehold was offered, again with no takers other than for change of use,” said Paul Worsley, pubs officer for West Berkshire Campaign for Real Ale

“West Berkshire Council has dragged out this application.

“Look at other nearby pubs. The Blackbird in Bagnor has no takers, empty for years, and a planning application live for change of use. Then the Woodspeen and Winterbourne Arms into restaurants. There are no takers for Walkabout freehold either, so now a lease is being offered.”

Fifty pubs a month closed for good across England and Wales in the first half of this year. Around 30 pubs in the Newbury area have closed in the last two decades.

Analysis by the real estate company Altus found that 305 pubs were forced to shut their doors permanently in the first six months of the year, meaning the number of pubs in England and Wales fell to 39,096 at the end of June.

Pubs that have “vanished” from the communities they once served have either been demolished and/or converted into other types of use such as homes, offices, day nurseries and care homes.