Campaigners have taken a major step towards buying a pub between Masham and Ripon.
Friends of the Crown, a not-for-profit group, is working towards buying the Crown Inn at Grewelthorpe and converting it to a community pub.
The group was formed following the closure of the Crown Inn last year.
The pub is owned by Admiral Taverns, which owns 1,600 UK pubs. However, the company accepted the campaigners’ offer on Monday to buy the pub subject to funding.
The group now aims to raise a minimum of £450,000 to fund the purchase and refurbishment.
It has applied for a grant of up to £250,000 from the government’s community ownership fund, which is a four-year scheme to support groups in purchasing community assets at risk of being lost.
In addition, group chair Martin Glynn told the Stray Ferret it would then require a further £200,000 of community donations.
He said the group conducted a survey to find out how many people supported the initiative shortly after the pub’s closure.
It revealed a total of 96% of the 120 responses supported the idea of a community pub, and the group has since received £177,000 of pledges from the local community, Mr Glynn added.
He added:
“The fund opened this time around with a much shorter window than anybody anticipated so it was a huge amount of work to get our bid ready, but we managed it — with an hour to go!
“I’d just like to say a very big thank you to everybody who helped – it really was a team effort. We just want our pub back in Grewelthorpe, and this week has seen us make big strides to achieving that.”
Friends of the Crown hopes the new pub will “service community needs” and provide a “welcoming destination for locals and visitors”.
The campaigners say they want to provide good food and drink, rather than just a “drinkers den”, and provide work and training opportunities for local people.
The group said it expects to hear back about the funding application in a few months’ time, adding it will then fundraise for the remainder of the money in the months following.
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