Mel Stride MP visited Stoke Canon today to support a campaign by village residents to keep their local pub, the Stoke Canon Inn. Since 2011 the pub has been run successfully as a volunteer-staffed community venture serving not only food and drink but also acting as a community hub offering various activities that aim to prevent rural isolation. The property developer who bought the pub in 2007 is now looking to sell the property and has given the villagers until January to come up with a plan to purchase the pub, valued at £300,000, or see it go on the open market. There are concerns that if this happens it will be turned into housing rather than continue as a pub. Campaigner Maggy Clark told Mr Stride that a hundred residents turned up to their first meeting on 14th September and that they had secured a combination grant/loan from the Plunkett Foundation for £100,000, which is contingent on them raising £150,000 in shares and donations.
Speaking after his visit Mel said:
“There was a great deal of confidence among those I spoke to that the pub can continue to be successful if the volunteers can generate enough revenue to secure a mortgage given that it currently pays £12,000 a year in rent. I will do whatever I can to support the campaign – if rural communities like Stoke Canon are to remain vibrant and residents are to avoid being socially isolated then we need our pubs to stay open.”
There are 142 pubs and 7 breweries within Mr Stride’s Central Devon constituency, employing 1,525 people, including 450 aged 16-24.
