Beautiful pub to be demolished for 10 flats:

A quiet month in Yorkshire on the demolition front has allowed me to explore the other side of the Pennines this month, beginning in Salford; a Local Authority that seems to have a penchant for erasing its history, whilst being beguiled by a vague notion of regeneration.

This lovely High Street pub has been closed since 2016, and was due to be converted into a daycare center, preserving the building.

Sold via auction for £200k in 2019, the new owner sought a higher return and put in an application for a three-story building, which was rightly refused.

The new application shows a similar-sized building albeit with a pitched roof, but equally dominant in the otherwise domestic scale street.

The building has been described as derelict and vandalised, which is seemingly how all buildings are described after being momentarily vacant in developer rhetoric.

The pub offers an important contribution to this street, which is one of the few remaining high streets of the towns in Greater Manchester that remains entirely Victorian/Edwardian.

As the building has recently been shown to be viable for business use, Salford should recognise the value in its retention. This is a high street, and a commercial use should be favoured over residential flats.

Pub in South Yorkshire to be demolished for 12 houses:

This pub has been up for sale for £225,000, which is a steal considering its also a very large handsome house. Even if you lived upstairs and had your own personal pub downstairs, you’d still be getting a home far bigger than anything else for that money nearby. Maybe the marketing didn’t quite reach a big enough audience.

I can see that delivering 12 houses will appeal to some, but as ever I contend that houses can be delivered on this site whilst retaining the building. Its only been closed since 2019, which is not enough time to demonstrate a cultural shift in Stocksbridge away from pub-going. The people around here clearly still need a boozer! I count 2 remaining pubs in Stocksbridge. This is a town of 10,000 people.

It’s not the most quaint pub, set in an overly large concrete car park (could have been your front garden…) in a housing estate. The historic maps show the pub to be on the site on an earlier property called Half Hall, however, the current building dates from 1963 – relatively modern in spite of its appearance alluding to early 19th-century pub architecture.

Application by Barnsley Council to knock down a pub they have bought: https://wwwapplications.barnsley.gov.uk/PlanningExplorerMVC/Home/ApplicationDetails?planningApplicationNumber=2021%2F0959#summary

If its not the brewery cashing in, or a volume housebuilder picking up recently closed pubs, then it turns out your Local Authority will knock your pub down for you. Barnsley Council purchased this pub with part of the £23.1m Towns Fund stipend it received from Central Government. An odd use of money considering there are derelict brownfield sites throughout the district that could be acquired via CPO much more economically. It is public money after all.

Goldthorpe has seen its centre carved out over the last few years, in spite of regeneration money pouring in and replacing the serviceable pavements with what appear to be stone bar codes. Demolishing the local is apparently the next step in this regeneration.

Although still trading in 2019, the pub has already gone such is the swiftness of an application to The Council by The Council. I really hate seeing pubs disappear at this rate.

A retrospective application (ie. its already happened) to demolish a pub South of Sheffield:

What an egregious way to manipulate the planning system. Tear down a local pub knowing that the law states you need permission for this and then ask for it retrospectively. What can they do? Say no and tell you to rebuild the thing? I highly doubt it.

It means a lot to see the high volume of public comments on the application, also exasperated with this criminal activity. A resident notes that the pub closed during lockdown, and this is grounds for it being described as an unviable business. There was a pandemic I seem to remember.

I would love to see the swines being made to build it back, brick by brick, to specifications set out by a heritage professional. And if their business goes under so be it. You broke the law and you deserve it.

That won’t happen. Despite the public ire the planning officer will want to avoid an appeal and the developer will get their 6 houses built out before the end of 2022.

Application to demolish a house in Doncaster district, which suspiciously looks like an old pub:

In my humble opinion, Thorne is one of Yorkshire’s best-kept secrets. A medieval market town outside of any national park or AONB, it is a paint job and a sourdough specialist away from being Thirsk. Yet even Doncastatrians are at a loss to point it out on a map.

This building is not magnificent, and as far as I can tell was the lodgings for those using the neighboring (former) Victoria Inn, now an Indian restaurant. Whether or not the Victoria Lodge operated independently as a pub is not known to me, and will likely be a secret only the people of Thorne know.

A lovely building in an old part of town, its loss is needless as the development site to the rear is clearly already accessible.

Shown in red on the historical map from circa 1900, no indication that it was a pub at this stage.

Last pub in the village of Spalding Moor near Hull to be lost:

This received permission last year, and it looks like the demolition is going ahead very soon.

It is always a shame to lose a pub, but when its the only pub, that is tragic. What a boring place this will now be. Moreover, this pub sits on the cross roads in the centre of the village. Its a landmark building. It is the focal point of the settlement. Urban design is not a new science anymore. We know the damage that this type of development and demolition does to a community. There are so many ways a planning officer could refuse this development based on local policy. I know this because I am a planning officer, and there is always a way to make the right thing happen.

Another former Bradford pub to be demolished:

Three pubs have gone into Bradford’s planning system for demolition in August, the other two being 20th century the Generous Pioneer in Burley and The Newby Square on Old Lane (shown below).

This pub in the middle of Eccleshill in Bradford shut a while ago, leaving behind its twin over the road, The Malt Kiln. As I’ve argued many times, the sum of two pubs is far greater than its parts. Two to three pubs is a destination people will travel to.

This is a very attractive Victorian pub with some quirky Bradfordian features. The bay window to the flank provides a natural landmark feature to the junction on which it resides. The extended element with a reverse mono-pitch also adds interest to the street scene. These incidental quirks do not exist in modern buildings.

The application makes no mention of its use as public house, and refers to the ‘demolition and reconstruction’ of the building. The plans show a dull hipped roof box, typical of the urban edge. In design terms, this would be another step backwards by Bradford Council and yet another piece of its stone history lost.

The two other pubs on their way this month. Interestingly, Green King’s The Generous Pioneer (below) is in fact a relatviely new building. A lot of effort went into a historically sensitive building. What a waste to flatten it.

Pub, demolished without planning permission in Elton:

https://www.developmentmanagement.stockton.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=QJDDH4PK07000

This pub only closed its doors last September, amidst the moratorium on the hospitality industry. Yet the application has argued that the building was marketed unsuccessfully and that a pub in this location is unviable. Disgracefully, the owners knocked the pub down, in hope that retrospective planning permission will be granted.

The reaction from the residents of Elton is testament to how much this institution meant. Comments have poured in, urging the council to lay down the law and demand the pub is rebuilt brick by brick. This happened in London, so why not Stockton?

A village is left bereft of a place to gather. The building is by no means ancient, having been built in 1900. Yet the half-timbered first floor, bold chimneys, and adjacent phone box create a mise en scene that worthy of every effort to retain. These places can not be found anywhere else in the world.

Second application to knock down historic village pub in East Yorkshire:

An application to clear this site was submitted last year and thrown out on the grounds that the pub is tantamount to a community facility, in spite of it being closed for a number of years.

A brilliant (and rare) determination that responded to the concerns of the villagers and the social fabric of the village. Yet the developer is going in for a second pass, with an application that still involves the wholesale loss of the 200 year old pub.

Social capital aside, the pub adds a lot to the genius loci of the village centre, extending the building line of the village core up Church Lane. And a village the size of Skirlaugh needs two pubs.

Lets hope East Riding development control throw it out again.

Unique pub in Sheffield torn down:

This pub, which dates back to around 1780 (although the existing building looks much more recent) has been empty now for 10 years, and internally has been destroyed by vandals.

Sadly, this industrial corridor of Sheffield has lost many of the dozens of pubs that would refresh the working class daytime population.

The frontage, part arts and crafts, part art deco, baffles me. I have not seen a pub look like this before. Yet it is not the architectural merit that makes its loss lamentable. As ever, the loss of a pub symbolises our decreasing demand for the company of other people.