Friends of the Erwarton Queen’s Head.

Representation for APP/D3505/W/23/3332753 in favour of upholding the decision to refuse Change of Use.

1.      About Us

The ‘Friends of the Erwarton Queen’s Head’ (FOEQH) is a committee formed in 2021 to investigate the viability of a community purchase of the Erwarton Queen’s Head. We have completed comprehensive research into the likely success of the Erwarton Queen as a community pub, the availability of funding, completion of condition and valuation surveys of the property and run campaigns and well supported events to gauge community interest. Our work to date indicates that there is a strong appetite for the community purchase of and re-opening of the Queen’s Head as a public house.

We recommend that you read this representation in conjunction with the detailed comment we originally submitted against the appellant’s application for Change of Use.

2.      Communications

In their Statement of Case, the appellant states that Everard Cole were instructed to ‘regularly check in’ with us during the marketing campaign. The appellant has also implied that we as a group were “contacted on a regular basis”. We confirm that this did not happen – communication went as far as one of our members repeatedly chasing the selling agent for updates and receiving very little information in return. We were not informed that the Babergh and Mid Suffolk Economic and Regeneration team were involved at all and when we asked Everard Cole why the Queen’s Head had been taken off the market, their agent could not give us an answer.

During the marketing period and otherwise, we tried to initiate communications with the appellant on numerous occasions via all means available to us – we received absolutely no response at all. It is true that we did not formally make an offer to purchase the pub during the marketing period. We believed that it would be listed for sale, until sold. We did not know that the marketing campaign would end after 12 months and as a new group, we had only just begun to reach out to the local community in February 2022 – just a few months before the marketing campaign ended.

After the Change of Use application was refused, we again wrote to the appellant making clear our wish to purchase the pub – see attached letter dated 10^th August 2023. Two months passed before we finally received our first ever communication from the owner, making it clear that they had no wish to enter negotiations with us. Please see their response dated 8^th November 2023 attached.

The appellant is correct – we have reduced communications with the local community. When the property was removed from the market, we were advised by Plunkett UK to cease all fundraising and marketing activity until such time that we actually need to raise funds and gain serious momentum.

3.      Our offer to purchase the Queen’s Head

In February 2024, we wrote to the appellant making a formal offer to purchase the Queen’s Head at the fair market value as determined by Mike Hughes of MJD Hughes – a Plunkett UK specialist public house valuer. The price offered was £295,000. Please see our offer letter dated 19^th February 2024 attached. Justification for this price can be seen in section 4 below.

To date, we have received no response to this offer.

If the appellant had genuinely intended to sell the Queen’s Head as a public house, rather than achieving a far more financially lucrative change in designation to residential, one would have expected them to both acknowledge this offer and negotiate with us.

The appellant has suggested that the FOEQH have implied that we are incorporated as a Community Benefit Society. The group has made no such implication though incorporation is something we will do as soon as the owners agree to enter into negotiations with us.

4.      Valuation

In our original comment on the Change of Use application, we argued that the Queen’s Head was listed at £55,000 in excess of a true market value. Despite the thorough detail provided in our comment, the appellant has tried to argue that we have no justification for this figure. Please see the attached independent valuation report completed by Mike Hughes of MJD Hughes for evidence. Please also see Section 2 of our original comment on the Change of Use application.

5.      Funding for the offer to purchase

The appellant states that we ‘only’ have £75,000 in ‘pledges’ to purchase the property. This is correct. These are merely the local pledges made by individuals, gained in from a very short period of fundraising activity and will not make up most funding for our purchase. As stated above, when the property was taken off the market, we ceased all fundraising activities as advised.

The majority of our funds to purchase the Queen’s Head will come from sources including:

• Issue of shares in, and loans to, Community Benefit Society
• Government’s Community Ownership Fund
• National Lottery Community Fund
• The Royal (formerly Prince’s) Countryside Fund
• Plunkett UK (formerly Plunkett Foundation)
• Babergh District Council
• Crowdfunding

There has in fact been a recent, local example of a successful community pub purchase in Framsden near Debenham. Please see the recent East Anglian Daily Times article attached. This case is very similar to our own:

• Like the Erwarton Queen’s Head, the Framsden Doberman/ Greyhound is also a Grade II Listed Building.
• As in this case, locals successfully fought a bid to turn the old pub into a home.
• The village of Framsden has a relatively dispersed population of 331 – similar to Erwarton.

Framsden’s Community Benefit Society has 70 members. Based on the community survey we completed in 2022, we are very confident that we will achieve a similar if not greater membership.

In the case of Framsden’s community pub, the community received a Community Ownership Fund grant of £276,000 and raised £55,200 to secure the purchase of their pub.

As we stated above, we would also look to take advantage of the Community Ownership Fund which requires the community to raise 20% of the funding required to purchase.

On this basis, if we are able to purchase the pub at the fair market value of £295,000 (see Section 4 above), our community will need to raise £59,000. As stated previously, the FOEQH have already received pledges totalling £16,000 in excess of this. In short, we are more than confident of our ability to fund the purchase of the Erwarton Queen’s Head.

We believe the success of the Framsden Community Pub further discredits the appellant’s notion that our likelihood of success is small.

6.      Viability of the Erwarton Queen’s Head as a public house

The appellant argues that their “viability assessment and unsuccessful marketing period for the property demonstrate that the site is not viable or desirable”. However, the independent report we commissioned makes it clear that this is not the case.  As we stated in Section 2 of our original comment, we believe that the pub was over-valued and that there was no genuine attempt by the owners to sell the property.  

• The pub was purchased by the current owners for £235,000.

• Their own report suggests that there are repairs totalling £123,00 (at 2019 prices) which are needed to remedy the neglect that they have allowed to happen.

• It is totally illogical to suggest that the appellant’s asking price of £350,000 plus repairs of £123,000 (therefore totalling more than double what they paid for the property) was a fair asking price for a pub which had been closed for 12 years at that time.

We feel that some at Babergh Council may have had the wool pulled over their eyes when it comes to the appellant’s valuation and marketing campaign – a sentiment also felt by members of the Planning Committee.

When the appellant purchased the pub, it was in full working order.  They have failed to maintain it in the following years, ripping out the bar and toilet for no good reason. The appellant argues that the bar was ‘tired and dated back to the 1990s’. We counter that it is not common practice for a pub to replace the bar regularly and that when last used by members of the FOEQH, the bar in the Queen’s Head was in fine working order. If the bar genuinely needed replacing, and the appellant intended to re-open the pub or sell the building as a pub, why did they not replace the bar themselves? This, along with other anecdotal evidence we have received suggests that the appellant was actively trying to deter potential purchasers.

The appellant uses the fact that the pub’s previous owner, James Buckle sold the pub as it was “not financially viable” as evidence in favour of their application. Here we can provide further background:

The pub had in fact been successful for many years, under the ownership of James Buckle’s father.  On his father’s death James took over the pub.  He got rid of the long-standing and popular landlady (Julia Crisp) and parachuted his own team in.  Several regulars boycotted the pub after this.  The new team were not popular with the regulars. Mr Buckle also tried to take the pub “upmarket”, in line with the other pubs in his portfolio, but again this was not popular with the clientele.  When Mr Buckle realised that his new team were not going to make a success of the pub, he installed another manager who managed to alienate several more of the regulars.  It was at this stage that Mr Buckle put the Queen’s Head for sale.  He may have considered it unviable; we suggest that it was inappropriately managed.

We have figures for the 6 years prior to the closure of the pub and these show that the downturn in trade coincided with the decision to remove Julia Crisp.  We believe that a pub managed with the community in mind would restore the pub to its previous vitality. As stated in Section 2 of our original comment, in the three years prior to the removal of Julia Crisp, the pub’s average turnover was £216,000. This is 73% higher than the figure used by Everard Cole in their viability report.

The FOEQH do not intend to use the business model adopted by James Buckle prior to him selling the pub. We do will provide services the community wants, which we have explored via means of a community survey.

The appellant questions our relevant pub and restaurant experience. This is of little consequence as our business model will not involve members of the FOEQH running the pub.

We intend to let the pub to an experienced landlord. Being a community pub, we will be able to offer favourable terms and rent to a tenant, thereby considerably increasing the pub’s chances of success. Members of the FOEQH are successful business owners and entrepreneurs with considerable business acumen themselves. Other members of the group have considerable experience in the hospitality industry. These skillsets combined with support from the likes of Plunkett UK will be more than sufficient to make a community pub a success.

7.      The Queen’s Head – a community asset

In their Statement of Case, the appellant makes it clear that they have little understanding of village life, suggesting that St. Mary’s Church is a suitable village hub. This is simply not true! When we held a public meeting to publicise our plans for the pub, we held it in the village hall of a neighbouring village rather than the church due to its lack of suitable facilities. When we held a very well attended quiz night for the village, this also had to take place in said village hall.

The appellant has also remarked on the number of Erwarton households that commented on the Change of Use application. We think that to have 27% of the village make the effort to make a comment is positive. We also feel that to achieve 56 comments on the application from residents all of the Shotley Peninsula and elsewhere is strongly indicative of community support. Strong support was also shown at both of the public meetings we held which were very well attended – our community are clearly invested in the re-opening of the Queen’s Head.

Figure 1: Attendees at our first public meeting.

In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of young families who have moved to the village.  All have asked members of the FOEQH “when will the village pub be re-opened?”. This shows that even since we surveyed the community, there is increased appetite for a pub in Erwarton from our new residents.

Members of the FOEQH present at the 2021 Annual Erwarton Parish meeting have quite a different recollection of the event, to what has been described by the appellant in section 7.4 of their Statement of Case. The fact that multiple questions were asked about the possibility of re-opening the pub demonstrated that there was a considerable amount of interest.  The appellant’s opinion may well have been skewed as they attempted to use the meeting to introduce measures to support their attempts to change the use of the pub. There was not a single comment in support of the appellant from anyone at the meeting.

8.      The appellant’s responses to comments on the Change of Use application

Economic Development and Regeneration Team

The appellant argues that the Economic Development and Regeneration team were happy that the EM24 was met. However, the Planning Committee did not seem to feel that this alone was evidence enough that the pub is not viable, proven by the result of 8 votes to 2 against the appellant’s previous appeal to the Planning Committee.

Heritage Team

The appellant argues that the Heritage Team considered that the application would cause no level of harm to the heritage asset. However, we believe there is enough evidence of neglect of the building under its current ownership to demonstrate that this is not the case. The flood to which the appellant has referred as causing sufficient damage to warrant them changing their mind on the viability of the pub as a business must have occurred a significant time ago because they never made any attempt to open as the café/art gallery originally promised to the village. In our opinion, the building has been left in a damaged state (with no bar or guttering) to dissuade potential purchasers of the pub.

Erwarton Parish Meeting

The appellant has tried to argue that there is a conflict of interest where the FOEQH Chairman William Wrinch is also Chairman of the Erwarton Parish Council. This is totally incorrect. The Parish Meeting wants only what is best for the community, which in this instance is the same as the FOEQH – the retention of the Queen’s Head as a pub. As you will know, the Chairman of a Parish Meeting has absolutely no sway over its decisions.  

Shotley Parish Council

If we are to highlight potential conflicts of interest, please note that at least one member of the Shotley Parish Council owns a public house and would likely not wish to have competition from a successful pub in Erwarton. This may have influenced Shotley Parish Council’s recommendation to approve the application.

9.      Other local pubs

The appellant argues that there are plenty of other pubs in the locality for drinkers and diners. When the Queen’s Head was open and thriving while the pubs listed by the appellant were also open.  We feel that what we will be able to offer as a community pub will enable us to compete with and to complement the other pubs in the area. As a community pub we will have a totally different offering the remaining pubs listed, so their rateable values are not an appropriate benchmark for our potential success.

10.  The appellant’s personal circumstances

The appellant has stated that the Queen’s Head has been their family home until 2022, and that should a Change of Use be granted, the “intention, is that the property will continue to be used as the family home”.   We have considerable doubts over this ‘intention’.

As the appellant has not resided in the property for nearly two years, it cannot ‘continue’ to be the family home – it already is not! The appellant has confirmed this in point 1.4 of their Statement of Case where they say that the property is currently vacant.

As far as the FOEQH are aware, the appellant does in fact not appear to reside in the country, as they are currently employed by an insurance company in Australia and are known to have been living there for many months.

11.  Planning Policy

The appellant argues concerns that the Decision Notice does not reflect the proper application of planning policies and national frameworks. We disagree:

National Planning Policy Framework

The appellant has quoted only paragraph 84 stating the policy seeks to promote health and wellbeing in communities. There are other paragraphs in the policy framework which are equally relevant and should be considered in relation to this proposal:

Paragraph 88 which states that planning policies and decisions should enable:

1. Sustainable growth and expansion of all types of business

2. Sustainable tourism

3. Retention and development of accessible local shops, public houses etc.

Paragraph 96 requires planning policies and decisions to aim to achieve healthy, inclusive and safe places and beautiful buildings which:

1. Promote social interaction, including opportunities for meetings between people who might not otherwise come into contact with each other.

2. Enable and support healthy lifestyles, especially where this would address identified local health and well-being need.

It has been noted above and explained that existing facilities in Erwarton are not conducive nor suitable for village use, whereas the Queens Head has ideal function space.

Paragraph 97 requires decisions and policies to provide the social, recreational and cultural facilities and services the community needs:

(a) plan positively for the provision and use of shared spaces, community facilities (such as local shops, meeting places, sports venues, open space, cultural buildings, public houses and places of worship) and other local services to enhance the sustainability of communities and residential environments;

(b) take into account and support the delivery of local strategies to improve health, social and cultural well-being for all sections of the community;

(c) guard against the unnecessary loss of valued facilities and services, particularly where this would reduce the community’s ability to meet its day-to-day needs;

(d) ensure that established shops, facilities and services are able to develop and modernise, and are retained for the benefit of the community; and

(e) ensure an integrated approach to considering the location of housing, economic uses and community facilities and services.

The granting of change of use from a public house to a residential development does not achieve these aims, or indeed the aims of the paragraphs listed above.

The National Planning Policy Framework is overwhelmingly against this development.

Turning now to Babergh’s specific policies:

Policy CS15 requires that development must respect the local context and character and demonstrate how the proposal demonstrates the key issues listed in that policy. Change of use proposal does not:

1. Demonstrate the principles of sustainable development. Sustainable transport modes are defined in the NPPF as:

Any efficient, safe and accessible means of transport with overall low impact on the environment, including walking and cycling, ultra-low and zero emission vehicles, car sharing and public transport.

The change of use would place total reliance on private car journeys to access key services.

2. Provide positive contribution to local character.
3. Protect or create jobs.
4. Make provision for amenity and leisure.

Items 2, 3 and 4 could be interpreted as only being requirements for larger developments but the policy CS15 makes reference to being appropriate to the scale of the development. In terms of this proposal the change of use does not:

1. Make any contribution to local character but seeks to remove historic links to the past.

1. Protect or create jobs. No attempt has been made to run the public house.

1. Make provision for amenity/leisure. This proposal removes provision which has been enjoyed by the village and surrounding villages for many years.

Policy CS17 seeks to promote sustainable tourism. The change of use proposal seeks to remove a valuable asset in the promotion of sustainable tourism. The lanes of the Shotley peninsula are well used by cyclists all year round, the many miles of footpaths create a wonderful environment for walking. Cyclists and walkers benefit from the backroads and paths being away from the busy roads between Ipswich and Shotley. The policy also makes no reference to the size of opportunities any development should provide, even if those opportunities are small, it does not follow that the proposed change of use should be accepted.

In Section 7.4 of their Statement of Case, the appellant notes that an adequate number of public houses on the Shotley Peninsula. Regrettably that list is incorrect, it should read:

• Rose Inn, Shotley
• Red Lion, Chelmondiston
• Butt and Oyster, Pin Mill
• Bristol Arms, Shotley Gate

Quite what the relevance of this is, is hard to interpret. The are no policies, guidelines or frameworks on the ‘density’ of public houses in any particular area. Much has been made of Erwarton’s isolated location and lack of public transport. Much the same could be said of the Butt and Oyster in Pin Mill, it has parking for about 20 cars, it is accessed via an unlit single-track lane but is still one of the most profitable businesses in the area.

It is not the location of the pub that makes it popular and viable it is the service it provides.

It is therefore understandable why the planning committee would conclude “This would, without proper justification, entail the loss of a valued community facility and potential meeting place, undermine the aims of sustainable tourism and also lead to the loss of potential employment retention or creation in Erwarton.”

12.  Deterioration of the listed property

Having reviewed the relevant paperwork we accept that the appellant has abided by the decision (B/16/00819) in relation to the bakehouse chimney. We do not believe that they kept to the spirit of the appeal against this application.  The original chimney was an important feature of the look of the original building.  No application to remove it was ever approved.  The appellant removed even more of the chimney and then argued that the objections only covered this remnant part.  We believe this displays the failure of the appellant to look after the fabric of this listed building in a suitable manner.

13.  Quotes from the Planning Committee

In their Statement of Case, the appellant has pointed out that “despite the Case Officer’s recommendation and the Area Planning Manager’s advice, the majority of planning committee members voted in support of refusing the application”. This is certainly true. The planning committee members could see the value of Erwarton having a community pub.  We believe that they could see that there had been bad faith on the part of the appellants.  When our representative Steve Smith informed the committee that the bar had been ripped out of pub by the owners, there was an audible, collective intake of breath amongst the committee members – they were wise as to why this had been done – to dissuade potential purchasers.

Quotes from other committee members were as follows:

Clare Free (Economic Development Officer)

“You will get developers and other people who will buy a property on the off chance that they can then sell it on as residential or develop it as residential later on. Pubs are particularly attractive in this respect because they have car parks so you can squeeze a few more in. We do not want to be having the same conversation with another new owner down the line when we tell them that you can’t just change it to residential. You might have bought it with that intent, but it was never sold with that intent.”

Councillor Derek Davies

“The church is not ideal (as a community facility), so having a designated space for the community is absolutely ideal and it’s exactly what Babergh as a council and Babergh as a planning committee want. We want to engage with our communities, we want to support our communities and this sort of application is not what the community want and is not what we as a council should be supporting.”

“The full employment opportunity hasn’t been fully explored because the owners refuse to engage with The Friends of the Erwarton Queen’s group, so I would suggest that EM24 hasn’t been completely satisfied.”

“At the moment the owners won’t even talk to the group. You can draw your own conclusions from that.”

Councillor Michael Holt

“It should be within our gift to retain these types of pubs within our communities. They are an asset to them. They may only have 120-odd people, but they draw people in from a wider area. Once you lose these out of a community they are gone forever. You’ll never get anything back to replace them. They are the life and soul of some communities and it’s a shame that so many small hamlets and villages have lost their pubs. I believe they have a fundamental meaning to the rural communities and the health and social benefit they bring is immense.”

“I don’t hold out a lot of confidence that the actual process involved in it (obtaining EM24) was good.”

“I don’t think you can say it’s not viable as a public house when we’ve got a gentleman over here (gestures towards FOEQH’s representative) who quite clearly believes that it is viable as a public house. I think that’s the wrong wording in there and I think it is misleading.”

Councillor Tim Register

“I am not convinced that the marketing was carried out at an effective time. If they ripped out the pub infrastructure, then it’s not going to appeal to anybody who may be wishing to purchase it as a pub anyway. Was that done on purpose or not? I do think that clearly, we need to retain pubs in small villages because they need a centre and if we keep losing them, then we end up losing communities in villages and that’s really not a good position to be in.”

Councillor Kathryn Grandon

“Once it’s gone it’s gone. It seems to me that they owners may have deliberately allowed the pub to fall into the state that it’s currently in. It seems me that the proposals from the groups that we’ve heard from today may have viability and I would like to give them the opportunity.”

Mary McLaren

“Stopping a business developing, I don’t think is right.”

An overwhelming majority of the committee members seemed to acknowledge that once an application for change of use is granted, the pub will be gone forever, with no chance to bring it back and that the wish of the appellants to take away the heart of our community for good, for their own selfish reasons should not be allowed.

14.  Conclusion

In short, we repeat the conclusions from our original comment to the application for Change of Use. We strongly disagree with the appellant’s view that the pub was viable before sale. No attempt has ever been made by the appellant to run a business from it during their tenure of the Queen’s Head.

As a result, we have made an offer to purchase the property, based on a robust independent valuation and are confident of our ability to fund that purchase and set up a pub for the benefit of our community.

We therefore request that the Inspector upholds the decision to refuse Change of Use.