No takers for country pub

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Thursday, 23 June 2022 16:31

By Gavin McEwan - Local Democracy Reporter

Efforts have resumed to turn a Herefordshire country pub and restaurant into a four-bedroom house, after no takers could be found to revive the business.

The Jolly Frog, on the A4113 near Leintwardine on the Herefordshire-Shropshire border, closed to customers in December 2018, after a new manager concluded it could not be made to work.

A previous effort to convert it into a home was withdrawn last year, after the local branch of the Campaign for Real Ale had said “no effort” had been made to sell it as a pub or community facility, as council policy requires.

The business had “operated exclusively on the basis of a restaurant” while “discouraging the casual drinking trade”, it said.

But this latest bid, by London-based investment firm Animatrix, said subsequent efforts to market it as a “public house/restaurant” over several months on a freehold basis, for offers in the region of £380,000, had yielded “no interest at all”.

The restaurant specialised in seafood dishes, and was favourably reviewed in The Guardian in 2003.

But a statement with the application by previous owners said its “trading track record over past 15 years is insufficient to attract a new proprietor”, blaming its “remote location and more convenient public houses in the area”.

Leintwardine itself already has two pubs that appear to attract good trade, while it lies 20 minutes’ drive from Ludlow with its many dining options, they wrote.

“In order to avoid the now vacant building falling into disrepair, it would be sensible to seek conversion to residential use”, the statement said.

Comments on the application, numbered 221623, can be made until July 13.