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Shropshire pub to remain ACV listed, tribunal rules


A tribunal has rejected a challenge to Shropshire County Council's decision to list a closed pub in Bridgnorth as an asset of community value (ACV) (2-page / 26KB PDF) after concluding it was realistic that the building could be put back into use as a pub in the next five years. 

The Council listed The Pheasant pub in June last year following a request by local residents. The owners of the pub, which had closed down in 2012 due to a decline in trade, subsequently challenged that decision and said they believed the pub had come to "the end of its natural life".

Under the Localism Act, a building should only be included on a Council's ACV list if “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 tribunal judge said he agreed with the conclusions of the Council's review officer that there was more than one realistic outcome for the pub in the next five years.

"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," he said.

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