MP launches fight to save threatened Otley pub (From Wharfedale Observer)

MP launches fight to save threatened Otley pub

4:50pm Thursday 4th October 2007

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A CAMPAIGN has been launched to save an Otley pub that will close this month for the second time in two years as fears grow that it is to be sold off for housing.

Barry and Pamela Mills, who took over running The Summer Cross on East Busk Lane in March, 2006 after the inn had been suddenly closed and boarded up six weeks earlier, have been told their lease will not be renewed.

Over the past 18 months the couple have successfully worked to make the business a success, winning two awards.

So they were stunned to receive a telephone call from County Estate Management - the agents for the owners - last month telling them their lease would not be renewed.

Mrs Mills said: "The pub is closing down and we are packing up to go at the moment.

"We expected to get another year's lease but the property company in London that owns the place have just informed us by phone - there was no letter or anything - to say they are not renewing the lease and that's that.

"The customers aren't happy, it's a shame and it would be a shame to pull the place down.

"I asked what they were doing with it and they said nothing' so we really don't know.

"But I have heard that sometimes this kind of thing happens and they leave the pub closed until it falls into rack and ruin, and don't renew its licence, until the local council finally says okay you can knock it down'. We've already had people around measuring the place and surveyors coming to have a look.

"But no-one from the owners has been to see us or anything.

"The actual lease runs out on November 12 but we're leaving here at the end of October. It is a bit sad.

"We've had enough of pubs now, we've got a house near Blackpool so we're going there.

"We've been here 18 months and we were doing well. The quiz night on a Thursday was really good, it was packed out every week, and we had an open night on a Friday and live music on a Saturday."

One of the pub's customers, Otley MP Greg Mulholland, a member of the All Party Parliamentary Beer Group, has responded immediately by launching a Save the Summer Cross campaign.

He said: "There is a petition in the pub which we are asking people to sign and we are holding a rally from the pub at 1pm on Saturday.

"Leaflets are also being delivered by residents to houses on that side of town to get people there. I am writing to ask the Town Council, Chamber of Trade, Otley Town Partnership and Otley Conserv-ation Task Force to back the campaign."

Rumours about the inn's future have been circulating for more than a year - something Mr Mills, in a letter published in the Wharfedale & Airedale Observer in April this year, addressed directly.

He wrote then: "For the past 12 months that I have been landlord of the Summer Cross rumours have regularly circulated that the pub is to re redeveloped into flats.

"I'd like to reassure everyone that the Summer Cross is not to be developed into flats, houses or anything else."

lThe Wharfedale & Airedale Observer contacted County Estate Management for a comment but no-one got back in touch before the time of going to press.

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