Dear Prime Minister,

Two years on from The Crooked House disgrace – viable historic pubs are still being lost

It is two years today since the appalling destruction of the world-famous Crooked House in Himley, South Staffordshire. As we have made clear all along, supporting the amazing local campaigners, this iconic, unique and extraordinary pub must be built brick-by-brick by the current owners.

We again wish to commend South Staffordshire Council for their correct and brave decision in mandating the rebuilding of the Crooked House within three years. This must happen – and the law must also be changed to make clear in any case of an unauthorised demolition of a pub, that this must happen.

Whilst the fire and subsequent unauthorised demolition of the Crooked House were indeed both appalling and distressing, and required robust action including by the Council, these are not the underlying problem. Rather it is the way that owners are permitted to sell pubs at hugely inflated freehold values – in other words pricing pub buyers out and making the loss of the pub inevitable; and the fact that an owner can ignore a bid as a pub, from an potential owner who wants to run it as a pub, to sell it at an inflated value for development. 

Many pubs, including those with carparks, beer gardens and bowling greens (of the few that remain), will inevitably have a (much) higher value as a development opportunity than they do as a pub. Without action to stop the cynical profiteering from exploiting the weakness of the planning system, we will see many more historic pubs lost, when they would otherwise be bought as a pub and could be made a success of.