More pubs up for demolition
Two pubs with applications hanging over their heads:
The Omnibus in Middleton, South Leeds:
A grand red robust building. Seen as a lynchpin for the envisioned new community of Belle Isle, as the city expanded during the formative years of town planning principles of the garden city, with notions of spaciousness, public life, and leisure, were still redolent in this public housing project. A new local pub of course, was seen as vital in this milieu.
A sad loss but it looks like the pub will make way for a new care home, which the area desperately needs.
Some such pubs have recently been listed, namely post war modernist examples that quite rightly deserve to be protected. Yet it would be prudent to retain some examples of the first wave urban extension pubs, and the ideals that the Utopian planners attempted to realise. If lost, places such as Belle Isle no longer reflect that vision, and become mere suburbs.
In Barnsley, The former Fitzwilliam inn is threatened with demolition:
Although looking tired now, the white and blue painted facade was once striking. The pub survived a similar application in 2014 and hopefully will be saved again. As this side of Barnsley regenerates, it is incumbent on the planners to recognise that a historic pub would provide much needed amenity for Barnsley’s new urbane apartment dwellers.
Think on Barnsley Met Borough Council.
The Shears Pub, Liversedge
Application to demolish historic pub in Kirklees:
The harrying of the Spen Valley continues. This pub is an incredibly important landmark in Yorkshire, serving as a meeting place of the Luddites. The 138 comments from neighbours are testament to the value this pub has in this community. If only councils would listen to their electorate a little more.
Or at least listen to the plea of the bbc:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-48076753
Built in 1773, the building should qualify for automatic listing status as stipulated by Heritage England. I will be incredibly shocked if the case officer does anything but immediately refuse the application.
I know there is a handy motorway junction nearby, and Ikea is just down the road, but at some point Kirklees needs to put a moratorium on the destruction of social infrastructure in the Spen Valley.
The Demolition Register 