Famous Plymouth social club collapses into liquidation
The company which ran one of Plymouth’s best known social clubs has gone into liquidation ahead of moves to knock it down and build a supermarket. Weston Mill Oak Villa Social Club Ltd has appointed liquidators and will be wound up voluntarily.
The club, in Ferndale Road, Camels Head, shut in December just days after it was revealed that a new multi-million pound supermarket could be built on its site within the next four years. Cornwall-based Walker Developments wants to knock down the Weston Mill Oak Villa sports and social club and build an enormous Asda supermarket with a 349-space car park on playing pitches in a development said to cost tens of millions of pounds.
Shortly after a public consultation was held to explain the plans, in November, the club shut down. A message posted on social media said: “Unfortunately the social club can no longer carry on due to our outgoings being much larger than our income.”
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Weston Mill Oak Villa Social Club Ltd’s most recent accounts, filed with the Financial Conduct Authority’s register of mutuals, showed that in 2023 it had a turnover of £217,507 but made a loss of £13,497. This followed a loss of £16,079 in 2022.
The business employed 10 people and had a wage bill of £88,485. It made most of its money, £217,507, from bar takings, supplemented by cash from fruit machines, a pool table, room hire, raffles and lucky dips.
There are plans to build a new social club with its own parking as part of the proposed supermarket deal. It is also proposed to construct a filling station, a new access road from St Budeaux bypass, and three new sports pitches.
The proposal has been described as “win, win” by Asda and welcomed by the Weston Mill Oak Villa Sports and Community Association, which has more than 100 members and currently leases the land from owner Plymouth City Council.
But at a one-day public consultation, in November, some neighbouring residents had concerns about increased traffic and the effect the development would have on parking. Some people complained that the current social club car park was being used by workers from Devonport dockyard and they could be displaced to already busy nearby streets.
The site is owned by Plymouth City Council but the club house and car park land is leased to Weston Mill Oak Villa Sports and Community Association, with about nine years left on the lease. The association maintains the sports pitches under a licence.
Weston Mill Oak Villa Social Club Ltd is a mutual, a company owned by its members, set up to run the social club. It had 390 members. A general meeting of members was held on January 29 where it was voted to wind up the company voluntarily and appoint liquidators.
Meanwhile, there remains the proposal to build a 36,000sq ft Asda supermarket and the car park on the site of the existing club house, car park and one of the football pitches. A new social club would be built with two football pitches and a rugby pitch, with developers putting in a new drainage system to solve a flooding problem that plagues the pitches currently. The overall development could be completed in three to four years.
The land was allocated for sports pitches and a supermarket in the Plymouth and South West Devon Local Plan.and had been subject of a previous move to build an Asda supermarket on the land in 1998.
An Asda spokesperson said building a supermarket on the land would create 250 jobs and there were no plans to close the city’s existing Asda superstore, in Estover.
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