Melton councillors block controversial village pub scheme

More than 150 people joined the parish council in opposing the scheme at the Black Horse at Grimston, which has been closed since January.

The Wakefield family, which owns the Main Street property, had applied to convert some of the main building to a two-bed flat, transform an outbuilding into a two-bed home and keep part of the pub on a much smaller footprint.

But Melton Council’s planning committee decided on Thursday to refuse the scheme on the grounds that there was no local demand for the housing and because the pub is protected as an asset of community value (ACV) because of its importance as a local amenity.

Councillors heard an impassioned plea from Henrietta Madox-Wright, chair of Grimston, Saxelbye and Shoby Parish Council, who told the meeting: “The Black Horse pub is the most prominent and important building in Grimston after the church.

“It is central to the village geographically and spiritually and has served as a much loved meeting place for many years.

“It is the only pub in the three villages of Grimston , Saxelbye and Shoby and the only pub within easy walking distance.

“A good village pub can reach more people in a way that a church and village hall activities may not.

“The extraordinary number of objections on the Melton Borough Council website reflects the strength of feeling from those who wish to ensure its survival.”

Many objectors to the scheme wrote to the council to say its loss would effectively make the community unsustainable for future generations with so few other amenities available to them.

In recent years, the pub had built a reputation as a popular destination pub serving quality food and was named in the prestigious AA Pub Guide for 2020.

Grimston resident Mike Petty, one of the many objectors, told councillors at the meeting that the Black Horse was a thriving destination pub when it was taken over by the current owners.

He said: “Businesses go into liquidation for all sorts of reasons including finanical mismanagement, as was the case here, although it suits the applicants to pretend otherwise.

“In early 2018, the applicants attempted to sell the pub as a going concern but set the asking price at £130,000 more than they had paid and quite arguably £250,000 more than the business was worth at that time.

“Unsurprisngly the pub did not sell. The applicants appoached the Co-op to sell it for use of it as a shop or a funeral home.

“Most recently the applicants had offered it to the community for £600,000 despite their own valuer setting a guide price of just £250,000.

“Please do not take the applicants lack of business acumen as any sort of proof of a lack of commercial viability of our 400-year-old pub.”

Councillor Ronan Browne, ward councillor, is a member of the planning committee but excused himself from voting on the issue because he wanted to support the objectors from the parish.

He told the meeting he didn’t think the smaller pub would be viable as a business and that there was no requirement for new housing in the village.

“As a planning authority we should be looking to make communities more sustainable not less as this proposal would do,” he said.

“As a local councillor working with the community a lot of effort has been spent looking at options on how the pub could reopen and be used by the community.

“The pub has been, and is, a key part of the Grimston community.

“There are people who would buy it at the right price as a pub and also there are options that have been looked into and these are going to be further discussed by the parish council at the appropriate time.”

The meeting also heard from Councillor Leigh Higgins, who said: “If we do take these eateries away the B&B businesses will start to suffer.

“We have to be guardians for the future of the borough and for a pub that has lasted 400 years, to convert it in an hour’s meeting when it was profitable three years ago, doesn’t sit well with me.”

Councillor Steadman commented: “Historically this pub has always thrived on its food trade.

“To reduce the footprint by what appears from these plans to be half would mean that it wouldn’t survive with half the amount of covers that it used to have.”

In their planning application, the Wakefield family said a restructure of the site to include housing would provide important income at a difficult time for the economy to sustain the pub in a smaller setting.

Haydn Wakefield spoke at the meeting on behalf of the owners and said the smaller pub would not be classified as a micropub and it would be able to serve 40 to 50 customers compared to the 50 or 60 who could be accommodated in the pub at its current size.

He said the pub was an unviable business and had made losses over the last three years, including when it was under the management of tenants.

Mr Wakefield told the committee: “The previous tenants went into liquidation owing thousands of pounds.

“If this business was such an asset to the community the business would still be trading until 2023 when their lease would have been up for renewal.

“It was advertised with a business agent and we spent £1,800 on marketing and on searching for a buyer.

“Local businesses were approached as well as 10-plus breweries and the Co-Operative but they felt the business and the location wasn’t viable.”

He said there had been a lack of support for the pub from the parish council and local residents and added: “The pub in its current format cannot return due to insufficient support and the effect coronavirus is having on the licensing sector.”

Councillor Elaine Holmes, who used to be a regular at the Black Horse when she lived nextdoor, told colleagues she was in two minds about how to vote because she could see both sides of the argument but she was eventually one of the 10 councillors who voted unanimously to refuse the application.