Community groups share £500,000 to reopen pubs

Two rural Shropshire pubs could be bought by their communities with the help of separate government grants totalling more than £500,000.

Both the Crown Inn in Newcastle-on-Clun and the Fox Inn at Ryton are currently closed, but local groups want to restore and reopen them.

Steve Burge from Newcastle Parish Council said it had applied to the Community Ownership Fund to raise enough money to "bring the premises up to date and make it an attractive venue".

The Friends of the Fox Inn group said they were "excited" to get the grant and had approached the owners of the pub to buy it.

The Crown ceased trading two years ago and Mr Burge said his parish council had been exploring the idea of buying the freehold to make the pub "a community asset".

His parish council was given £270,000 to help purchase it and carry out essential work to "bring it up to date and attract a competent, ambitious tenant".

He said because the area was sparsely populated, it would not have been possible to "club together" to buy the pub, and the application to the Community Ownership Fund had been a "no-brainer".

Mr Burge said he hoped that with the parish council as landlord, "this community asset becomes once again, a well-loved attraction in the Upper Clun Valley".

Helen May, the secretary of the Friends of The Fox Inn group, said she had received "incredible support from the local community"

Her group said it planned to launch a share issue to raise more funds.

The Friends said The Fox had been a "previously thriving country pub" which closed its doors in September 2022.

A meeting will be held in January to discuss next steps.

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