Ownership in sight for community group trying to save rural pub near Shrewsbury
A community group are one step closer to reopening a rural pub that closed more than two years ago.
After more than 300 years of trade, the sudden closure of The Fox Inn at Ryton in summer 2022 caused great upset in the cluster of pub-less villages to the south of Shrewsbury.
Within days, a meeting was held at the village hall and a group of passionate locals came together to form 'Friends of The Fox Inn', a steering group focused on reopening the 17th century pub.
What followed was two and half years of campaigning and fundraising, with the group holding quizzes, car treasure hunts, bingo nights, coffee mornings, race days, BBQs, raffles, and even a Sewing Bee finalist evening.
In December last year, the now-Community Benefit Society, Fox Inn Ryton Community Pub Ltd, were thrilled to find out they'd been successful in securing £250,000 worth of funding from the government on their second attempt.
And with that, the group say they have now reached an agreement with the owners to finally purchase the pub.
The government Community Ownership Fund (COF) requires match funding from other sources to support the purchase or renovation of community assets.
In order to reach that final milestone, the group have launched a community share offer - allowing members of the public to purchase a share of the pub for £250.
"We're hoping to raise 200k through the share offer," said communications officer, David Wright, who confirmed the scheme had raised over £40,000 in the first 48 hours after it was launched on March 1.
He added: "It's been a long road, but there's a lot of goodwill in the village to get it where it is today. There are only around 300 people in Ryton, but there are no pubs in the surrounding villages either, so it's not just the village, it's the surrounding community as well."
Reopening the pub is only part of the plan, David explained, with the group having aspirations to also run a morning coffee shop and greengrocers out of the building.
He added: "We want it to be community-owned and community-run, we're open to all sorts of suggestions but we can't do them all at once and not everything will work."
The group are holding two open events about the purchase and share offer in the coming weeks, which will be held on March 6 from 7pm to 9pm and March 16 from 11am to 1pm.
More information about the plans are available online at the-fox-at-ryton.co.uk
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