It’s been almost four years since the Britannia Inn called last orders for the final time – but locals are trying to open the pub once again.
The pub, in the city of Wells in Somerset, closed in June 2021 when the previous landlords, Rob and Karen Rouse, retired.
The building has been empty ever since, and it’s currently on the market for £300,000 – so a local community group is hoping to buy the pub and start pulling pints once again.
Now, punters at the Britannia Inn are hoping to replicate the success of those campaigns.
Last year, the pub was registered as an asset of community value by Somerset Council, following an application from Wells City Council, thanks to its importance to the local community.
Locals set up the East Wells Community Benefit Society (CBS) with the hope of buying the pub and re-opening it as both a pub but also a community hub.
They’ve launched a share offer to try and raise £450,000 – about £300,000 to buy the building, and another £150,000 to repair and refurbish it before its doors can open again.
Theo Butt Philip, a local councillor who chairs the group, said: ‘The opening of the share offer gives us all an opportunity to club together and buy the Brit, so that it can once again become a vibrant community pub for East Wells.
‘I know we need to raise substantial funds for this project to work, but I also know how much people want to see the Brit reopened and I’m hopeful that our community will come good and find the money we need to make this project happen.’
The share offer opened on Saturday, with shares priced at £1 each with a minimum investment of £50 and a maximum of £25,000.
The offer is set to close on May 30, but it may be extended for another month if it fails to reach the initial target.
The Britannia Inn is hardly a rare case: it’s feared there could be fewer than 1,000 pubs left in the UK by 2074, and with more than 50 shutting down every month in the first half of last year, that grim prediction is sounding more and more realistic.
There were 518 pub closures in 2022, increasing to 769 in 2023
The coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, followed by skyrocketing inflation and the cost of living crisis in 2022 and 2023, has spelled disaster for pubs.
But amid the doom and gloom in the hospitality sector, there are success stories of communities reopening their local boozer or keeping it open in the first place.
Earlier this year residents of Langton Herring in Dorset raised £600,000 to save the Elm Tree Inn after their TikTok campaign to keep it open went viral.
And the Martyrs Inn in Tolpuddle, also in Dorset, shut down in 2020 but has since reopened after villagers raised £500,000.
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