Representatives of a Herefordshire village fight loss of only pub.

Representatives of a Herefordshire village have unanimously opposed plans to turns its only pub into a house

The Castle Inn in Pendant Pitch, Little Birch south of Hereford closed seven years ago and now owner Dee Langford is seeking full planning application (number 261211) to convert it into a single five-bedroom house, leaving its form largely intact.

But following an extraordinary meeting, Little Birch Parish Council said the inn “has historically served as the village public house and remains a public house in planning terms”.

Councillors said Ms Langford’s bid “fails to provide sufficient information to justify (its) loss”, given that local planning policy “seeks to protect community facilities within rural communities”.

There was no viability assessment, marketing report or other supporting evidence “demonstrating why the existing public house use should be permanently lost”, their statement said.

The parish council has also heard from prospective buyers with proposals for “community activity space, wellbeing activities, hospitality uses and visitor accommodation” – showing “there remains interest in uses that would retain a degree of public and community value”.

In a similar vein, Herefordshire CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) representative Mark Haslam, who had attended the meeting to gauge local feeling on the issue, said the application “fails to satisfy any of the three limbs” of the county’s policy on protecting community facilities.

It had neither shown that the pub was unviable and not needed; nor that it had been marketed for community use without success; nor that alternatives to it were available locally.

Indeed the applicant had failed “to make even a rudimentary case for the conversion”, Mr Haslam claimed.

Among four individual local objections so far published, Sandra Cameron said that, as a village resident for over 40 years and previously a regular customer of the pub, its permanent loss would “remove any future possibility of restoring a vital social hub to the village” – which otherwise “has very few community facilities”.

Consultation on the planning bid is open until July 15, with a decision then due within two weeks.