Judge rejects attack on listing of closed pub as asset of community value

The First-Tier Tribunal has upheld a council’s decision to list a pub shut since 2012 as an asset of community value.

The Pheasant at Lindley Brook, Bridgnorth in Shropshire had been owned by a Mr and Mrs Reed for many years. However, they closed it down in 2012 because of dwindling trade.

In April last year a group of residents wrote to Shropshire Council nominating The Pheasant as an asset of community value.

On 11 June the local authority added the property to its list. This decision was confirmed in August 2013 following a review.

The Reeds appealed to the General Regulatory Chamber of the First-Tier Tribunal.

The owners argued that section 88(2)(b) of the Localism Act 2011 was not satisfied. This section suggests that the asset should not be included on the council’s list unless “it is realistic to think that there is a time in the next five years when there could be non-ancillary use of the building or other land that would further (whether or not in the same way as before) the social wellbeing or social interests of the local community”.

The Reeds, who had run the pub for several years and had been commended for the quality of their beer, told the Tribunal that The Pheasant, as a pub, had simply come to the end of its natural life. They said that they would have carried on running it as a pub if it could have been made to pay.

The Pheasant is down a small country lane and therefore does not attract any passing trade, they said, adding that they had tried to sell the pub since 2007.

Refusing the couple’s appeal, Judge Nicholas Warren said he gave “full weight” to all that the Reeds had said, but found he was in complete agreement with Shropshire’s review officer (a Mr Edwards).

The officer had concluded that there was more than one realistic outcome for the future of The Pheasant in the next five years.

“Of course, it might remain as it is; it might be sold for some other use; it might be sold and revived as a pub,” the judge said.

“I agree with Mr Edwards that all these outcomes are realistic. Despite the general decline in the pub trade and the individual difficulties which The Pheasant faces, it remains realistic, in my view, to think that there is a time in the next five years when the use to which it has been put for over a hundred years might resume.”

Robin Hopkins of 11KBW acted for Shropshire in this case.