Another two West Berkshire pubs set to make way for flats

Historic venues could be lost for good

ANOTHER two historic West Berkshire pubs look set to make way for housing.

Plans have recently been approved to turn the Lord Lyon in Stockcross into nine apartments (four one-bedroom and five two-bedroom) with a total of 16 parking spaces.

The application says: “Despite its external attractiveness, this public house is not economically viable.”

It adds: “Reasonable attempts have been made to sell the building as a public house at a realistic price for more than six months.”

In a viability report, Victor Ray, a chartered surveyor of Ray & Company Surveyors, confirmed this “pub has little prospect of succeeding in today’s economic climate… having regard to the immediate environment”.

Property specialist Fleurets started marketing the premises for sale in September 2015, but only three formal viewings took place.

In a marketing report published in August 2016, Fleurets says that the “general feedback from parties who undertook a customer visit was that it was not viable as a public house”.

It adds: “It is a destination pub with letting rooms, but it is understood that the room occupancy was low and the trading levels were dwindling.”

The application says: “It is submitted that the conversion of these vacant premises (in a sustainable location within the Stockcross settlement boundary) to apartments would accord with the mixed character of their surroundings and neither compromise the standard of community services for local residents/visitors nor the key sustainable development principles of national planning policy.

“An alternative acceptable public house (ie the Rising Sun) exists in Stockcross.

“The loss of the Lord Lyon Inn public house would not comprise an unacceptable decline in the standard of community services for local residents or visitors.”

Meanwhile, an application to turn The Winning Hand public house, located in countryside to the south east of Beenham and adjacent to the A4 Bath Road, into four flats has been submitted.

Plans to turn the pub into a private school were approved last year, but later withdrawn by the applicants.