Black Horse, Grimston: Community raises £500,000 to save pub

A community has raised £500,000 to save a 400-year-old pub from development.

The Black Horse in Grimston, Leicestershire, closed in 2020.

A group of villagers got together to form a community benefit society - a not-for-profit organisation - and applied for grants and raised the funds needed to buy the pub.

They are searching for a tenant to run the pub, which is currently undergoing restoration, and hope to open later in 2023.

Mike Petty, who chairs the Black Horse Community Group, said the pub was the only one in Grimston.

"When this pub closed three years ago, it really tore the heart out of the community," he said.

"As far as we can tell, this pub has been here for 400 years and, in all that time, it's been at the heart of the community."

He added there had been huge community support for the project.

"There were two planning applications, which we resisted," he said.

"We raised just over £250,000 in share capital and donations and then another £250,000 in [the government's] Community Ownership Fund which has allowed us to pay for the asset, legal fees and the initial refurbishment."

Mr Petty, from Grimston, said the idea had started as a conversation with his next-door neighbour on his driveway.

"It's grown from there," he said.

"We held a community meeting in the summer of 2020. We came together, formed a committee, pulled together eight people who have been very active and have worked extremely hard to get to this stage.

"I am really looking forward to it [reopening] but we've still got a lot of work to do."

Carol Davis, secretary of the group, added: "The key thing is for people to come here and socialise.

"We are one of many community pubs like this and there's only ever been one that's failed in all the years they have been going."

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