Owners of Shropshire village pub that shut 10 years ago submit new plan to turn it into a home

A village pub's owners who were ordered to re-open it or leave seven years ago have lodged a plan to convert it into a house.

The Cleveland Arms’s owners John Hickinbottom and Susan King were given the ultimatum by a planning inspector in 2018 following an appeal battle with Telford & Wrekin Council.

Since the pub in High Ercall closed in 2016 there have been several attempts to redevelop the site, all of which have been refused by Telford & Wrekin Council.

Planning inspectors have backed the council's decisions on two occasions.

The pub, in Cotwall Road, had been listed as an asset of community value (ACV) but Mr Hickinbottom said that lapsed in 2022.

It was built between 1841 and 1851 and a tenant farmer was its first innkeeper, documents show.

Now Mr Hickinbottom in the latest plans has told the council that no local campaigners or local authorities have put in any bids to buy the property and re-open it as a pub in the last 10 years.

He wrote that the only interest has been in buying the site for housing.

The derelict building was also broken into earlier this year when copper piping was stolen, he added.

Mr Hickinbottom, of Halesowen, has provided the council with reports from commercial property sales companies detailing efforts to sell it over the years.

Also lodged were financial assessments saying that the £290,000 cost of repairs to reopen it as a pub would dwarf its £185,000 value.

Mr Hickinbottom stated that the pub is "unoccupied and unviable" and at risk of deterioration.

He added that over the last 10 and a half years "no one has offered to or been prepared to" restore the Cleveland Arms to a public house or community facility.

Mr Hickinbottom wrote that the council should assess the benefits of an 'enabling development' to conserve the building.

The current owners of the pub took it over in 2013 but Mr Hickinbottom wrote that it was closed in January 2016 after "serious structural defects" were found. Two building piers with defects were the only support for the western half of the building, he wrote.

The pair moved out of the pub in June 2019.

"In the last decade the only interest in acquiring the Cleveland Arms public house has been for a residential development use," the applicant wrote.

"In the last decade no individual, business, community group, Ercall Magna Parish Council or Telford & Wrekin Council have indicated that they were prepared to invest in the property and commit to restore the premises to a public house/community facility and bowling green."

A public consultation exercise has begun; learn more on the Telford & Wrekin Council planning portal (reference TWC/2026/0453).