Plans to permanently close pub and turn it into a house blocked

Plans to turn a pub into a home have been blocked. Planning officers said not enough had been done to ensure no one wanted to continue running the pub. The developer behind the plans to convert the Millers Arms in Ackerman Street, Eaton Socon, claimed the business was unviable and proposed to turn the pub into a house.

Apis Investment submitted a viability assessment report to Huntingdonshire District Council, which claimed that if the pub was reopened it would face a “significant annual loss” and would not be viable. The report also said the building was in a “general poor state of repair” and that it was estimated it would cost £60,000 to complete the required work..

The viability assessment said: “The Millers Arms is an attractive building, has a reasonable layout, floor space and beer garden, though the residential accommodation above is limited. However, the pub faces a number of problems: the change in customer behaviour, the rapidly increasing cost base and the significant number of high quality competitor pubs in the near vicinity. Even taking figures for a best case financial scenario the pub could not make enough money to be considered a long term viable business.”

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However, planning officers at the district council said some of the assumptions and calculations made in this viability assessment were not supported by evidence. Officers said the report drew conclusions from “generic statements around the UK public house market”, and said it was therefore “too ambiguous” to be used to assess the viability of the Millers Arms being run as a pub.

Planning officers also said they were not satisfied with the marketing that had taken place when the pub was put up for sale. They highlighted that it had been advertised as being used as a public house, but also as a development opportunity; officers therefore argued it had not been “effectively and robustly marketed for its current use as a public house”.

Planning officers added that they believed the applicant had bought the pub “as a development opportunity”, as they said no evidence had been shared with them to show they had purchased the Millers Arms to continue running it as a pub. The district council therefore refused to give permission to convert the pub into a home.

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