Plans to turn pub into house turned down

Plans to turn a pub into a house have been blocked after officials said not enough had been done to show no-one wanted to run the business.

Apis Investment, the developer, claimed the Millers Arms in St Neots, Cambridgeshire, was not a viable business.

It said that if the pub, on Ackerman Street in Eaton Socon, was reopened it would face a "significant annual loss".

Huntingdonshire District Council planners turned down the application, saying evidence presented by the developer was "too ambiguous" to be used to assess the viability of the Millers Arms being run as a pub.

The developer stated the building was in a "general poor state of repair" and estimated it would cost £60,000 to complete the required work.

It said with competitor pubs being in the vicinity, "even taking figures for a best-case financial scenario, the pub could not make enough money to be considered a long-term viable business".

Council planners said the developer's report drew conclusions from "generic statements around the UK public house market", which were "ambiguous".

They also said they were not satisfied with the marketing that had taken place when the pub was put up for sale, saying it had not been "effectively and robustly marketed for its current use as a public house".

The application was refused last week.

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