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25
Jun
Update: changes to pubs across the district
There are several changes brewing at licensed premises around the district currently. This is a brief round-up of what we know at the moment.
Beckwithshaw is to become a ‘dry’ village in the autumn, when the Smith’s Arms shuts for several weeks for a major refurbishment. Details of the temporary closure have not yet been published by the pub’s owner, Suffolk-based Greene King.
In Knaresborough, pub-goers have one less place to go to following the closure of the Mother Shipton Inn by Low Bridge. The pub shut recently after the tenants moved out at the end of their lease.
Owner Admiral Taverns, which owns 1,600 pubs across the UK, has listed the inn as available on a five-year lease for an annual rent of £39,800.
Its website states that any new tenant’s initial investment would come to £12,000 – made up of a £5,000 security deposit, £4,000 of stock and £3,000 working capital.
The Mother Shipton Inn in Knaresborough.
Meanwhile, local pub company Appetite for Life is working to put long-held plans into action in Starbeck and Knaresborough.
The company’s owner, Robert Thompson, recently confirmed via a Facebook post that Appetite for Life holds the lease to the old carpet showroom on Starbeck High Street and that it “100%” still plans to open a bar there.
The company gained planning permission to convert the corner unit in 2021, but that expired last April. At the time, Mr Thompson said it would be a “licensed craft beer and coffee shop, with a deli counter open during the day, and at night it will have more of a bar feel”.
The former carpet shop on Starbeck High Street.
In his recent Facebook post, he wrote:
We had been waiting for a very long time for a site in Starbeck and were excited when this opportunity came along.
Unfortunately however, we have had a number of setbacks and reasons out of our control for not being able to start work on the site.
Obviously, this has been massively frustrating for us, as it appears to also have been for you guys. In the meantime, we have completed the design and we have been collecting and recycling furniture and bric-a-brac for it.
He added that there was not yet a confirmed start date for the project, apologised that it was taking so long, and asked locals to “please bear with us”.
The 1858 restaurant and bar in Knaresborough.
Simultaneously, Appetite for Life is planning to take over 1858 in Knaresborough. The company is currently trading at the site under licence for the current owners until the sale is finalised, but no date for completion has been confirmed.
Appetite for Life owns SO! Bar in Harrogate and Knaresborough; Hart Bar and the Groves Inn in Knaresborough; the Mucky Duck, the Devonshire Tap House and the Tap on Tower Street in Harrogate; and the Black Bull in Ripon.
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