What do we want? What are we campaigning for?
For generations, The School House Inn, Low Marishes has provided a community hub for the local residents as well as a place of sanctuary for the neighbouring residents and visiting tourists alike. We are extremely proud of our pub and up until its sudden closure in November 2009, it was a regular and frequent outing for all of the villagers and travelling patrons.
Shortly after closing, an application was made to turn the building in to residential accommodation This meant that the pub and restaurant that we had known all of our lives disappeared along with nearly 120 years of treasured memories.
Whilst we don’t begrudge the failure of The School House Inn as a business, we do strongly oppose redevelopment of the building into houses.
Having had numerous planning applications rejected over the last 3 years, the current owners have apparently altered their application to retain a small area of the pub as a “micro pub”. The danger here is that their application still changes over half the existing pub into housing and there can be no guarantee through the planning process that the area reserved for a micro-pub would ever open. Even if it was to open, it is unlikely that a micro pub would succeed as, selling drink only, it would not attract enough trade. In fact, the owners cited the drink driving ban as a reason for their business’ failure.
Simple business acumen would mean that in order to sustain the business, a restaurant facility would be required and to also bolster the profit, the outbuildings that also belong to The School House Inn could be converted in to holiday lets - an application for doing this has already being granted some years ago.
So in a nutshell, how should it work?
The business needs to remain as a whole. As a country pub in a thriving tourist area, it is large, attractive and welcoming. It is (and has always been) an appealing spot for old and young, families and individuals, locals and tourists and anyone who passes.
In order to succeed, the business needs:
- A well maintained restaurant, providing quality meals to the local and surrounding population, tourists and coach parties,
- A bar area for the local residents and visiting patrons who wish to utilise every aspect of a wonderful country pub,
- Conversion of the outbuildings in to holiday lettings, for the millions of tourists who visit our area each year.
What do we want?
We want to know a firm asking price for the property so we can open fair negotiations to buy the pub on behalf of the community and have it remain as a business. Or as a secondary option, help find a suitable buyer who can turn around the fortunes of the business.
We don’t expect anybody to run a business just because we want them to and we certainly don’t expect anyone to try to run a micro pub just for the community. What we would hope, though, is that The School House Inn is marketed thoroughly and genuinely in order to give it the best chance of surviving for the next 120 years. We are 100% behind anybody who truly wants to run a pub and make it a success for themselves. We then get to keep our community facility.
There is no need for our pub to disappear.
What’s the cost?
This is the problem, the estate agents will not tell us. The pub was purchased for approximately £349,000 in June 2007 which was sold as residential accommodation as well as a business. After the pub closed its doors, the property was completely gutted and the kitchen, bar area as well as other chattels were ripped out and sold by the current owners. Therefore, the property is now in need of full refurbishment.
The current value of the property with it currently trading as a business and in a similar state of repair as it was when it was sold is approximately £300,000. If you deduct the business element from the property as well as the cost of a refurbishment of everything that was ripped out, the realistic value of the property is going to be minimal.
So why can’t it be sold?
The company who are marketing it, Brownill Vickers in Sheffield, are unwilling to name a price to anybody showing an interest in purchasing the property to run it as a business. Having being offered extremely vague “expected offer” prices of around £375,000 (yes, £375,000!), the reason why it cannot be sold is obvious, the estate agents and current owners are not willing to name a firm price and additionally, are offering a price that is considerably higher than it’s worth.
A resident of the village has already made a firm offer for the business which was rejected outright.
There is also a significant amount of confusion surrounding who is actually selling the property. With knowing Matthew & Sarah Richardson, we hoped we could maintain this relationship in order to acquire the details we needed for a potential offer. Upon speaking with the estate agents, we were told;
I do however point out that Mr Richardson is not involved in the decision making process and my client contact has always been with Mr Watkinson, who is Sarah Richardson [sic] father.
- Martin Nicholson, Brownill Vickers, November 2011
So unfortunately, despite Matthew & Sarah Richardson having being the owners of the business, it would appear the decision on the sale rests solely with Mr Watkinson whom has no legal title to the property.
Is the business actually for sale?
You could probably suggest that despite it being marketed, there is no intention to sell the property as a business.
Matthew & Sarah Richardson state that because the business is no longer viable, there is no other option but to convert the property in to residential accommodation. So what would happen if interest was shown or more importantly an offer made?
My client has listened to some of the comments from the councillors who opposed [to accept the planning application] and we believe with some slight alterations to the plans they will find favour with a revised planning application. Therefore you will appreciate the wish to sell the property is no where near as acute as it was when we commenced marketing in 2010 and there is now a real opportunity that the owners will get a cottage out of the property…
- Brownill Vickers, April 2012.
It would appear Matthew & Sarah Richardson are no longer interested in selling the business and allowing it an opportunity to flourish under new ownership anymore.
So to summarise…
Our campaign to save and preserve our pub is not a case of blind ignorance. We are fully aware of the business methods for it to remain open and enjoy success.
A micro pub would never work because the business would never be viable as a drinking establishment only. The pub needs to have a successful restaurant and holiday accommodation for it to remain viable.
We desperately don’t want to lose our pub for both the community and our beloved tourists, and we really appreciate your support.
Thank you for your comments Mr Nicholson. Unfortunately, these comments miss the point we are raising as the application is not about the pub but about the proposed house. There is a difference between the content of the application and the ‘title’ of the application. We object to the change of use of the pub to a dwelling. As you are obviously aware, once change of use is granted none of the content of the application – especially what you refer to as ‘phase two’ of the scheme – needs to be adhered to. (I presume phase one of the application refers to the ‘micro pub’ which was refused). Your client’s aim from the very first application was to convert the pub into a house. The pub as it stands already has a substantial dwelling above. The lawful use of the premises is as a public house so why is planning permission required? It seems an unnecessary expenditure just to rearrange what already exists. So you see Mr Nicholson why we doubt that this is a genuine application.
You continue to claim that the pub could be up and running very soon following a favourable decision from the council. No further planning permission is required at this time to re-open the whole or part of the ground floor and as you have a landlady waiting in the wings it would be a good opportunity to demonstrate to the community that this is in fact the intention and dispel the belief that the application is purely about the change of use.
We are the selling marketing agents and to be fair and honest this blog is not a true or accurate reflection of the events.The property closed in 2009 – nearly 3 years ago.
The property was available to purchase October 2010 to last year but we have now found a tenant to take on a smaller pub ( phase one) and utimately create a larger and better pub with phase two of the scheme – the application was lodged with Ryedale Council recently.Phase two creates a better pub than the one that previously traded here. The pub would have a fully functional restaurant/function space as well as a bar and letting room potential.I am sure that the locals will want to support the most recent application.The pub was not sold as the offers received were considered too low – so we moved on to finding a tenant and one has in principle being found and indeed if the last application had been granted then I suspect the school house would now have been open and trading again !