Conversion plan for flood-prone rural pub on Shropshire border is knocked back
A bid to turn a flood-prone pub near the south Shropshire border into a house has been narrowly defeated.
The Temeside Inn in Little Hereford, near Woofferton and Tenbury Wells, was previously “a hub of connectivity in our widely dispersed parish”, Brimfield & Little Hereford Group Parish Council chairman David Harris told Herefordshire Council’s planning committee, and claimed that the application by owner John Leonard had not shown that options had been exhausted to retain it for community use.
Nick Comley said that, as well as a concerned local resident, his employer the social enterprise Plunkett UK had helped The Boot at Orleton and The Bell at Yarpole to be taken into community ownership.
“We are simply asking that the community of Little Hereford be afforded the same opportunity, at a fair and reasonable price,” he said.
Herefordshire CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) representative Mark Haslam said the Temeside “has not been marketed as a pub since 2021, when it was on at £495,000”, compared to the £200,000 recent selling price of the “substantial” nearby Roebuck Inn in Brimfield.
Ward member Councillor John Stone said pubs “can operate despite the threat of flooding”, indeed the Temeside “traded very successfully after the 2007 floods”.
But Mr Leonard told councillors that after letting it out to tenants, “three of them went bankrupt”, while successive floods have meant “it has become impossible to obtain flood insurance, affecting public liability cover”.
And despite several attempts to sell it down the years, “I have only had one offer, which was withdrawn after the flood in 2020,” he said.
For the committee, Councillor Bruce Baker said its imminent reopening as a pub “is not likely to happen” given the economic and fiscal climate.
But Councillor Richard Thomas said the committee “cannot be inconsistent”, having recently refused a similar bid, adding: “This could start a landslide of pubs that are being run down.”
Councillor Stef Simmons was not convinced by Mr Leonard’s claim that alternative facilities were available nearby. But she acknowledged the challenge to businesses in “bouncing back” from repeated flooding – which colleague Councillor Charlie Taylor said “without insurance, in a flood zone, would be impossible”.
Councillors voted by seven votes to five, with two abstentions, to refuse permission on grounds of the lack of marketing as a pub and loss of a community facility.
