Moving forward!

You might have seen photos on social media of a few of the Oddies team in hard

hats recently! This was because we were doing a site visit to the pub to assess its state in advance of refining our estimated valuation before making an offer for the pub on behalf of the community and entering more detailed negotiations.

Oddies CBS team visit the site

As you will know if you’ve been following our story, we have been in discussions for

some years with the current owners regarding buying the pub and most of the car

park area to create a community hub at the Oddies pub. The car park area and the

pub buildings are a designated Asset of Community Value (ACV) which recognises

its value to the community. Over several planning applications the value of the

Oddies to the community has been highlighted and at the Appeal Hearing last

summer the Inspector stated that the community heritage of the pub, having been

operating as a pub or beer house for over 200 years, should be preserved. This

means the pub must stay a pub!

Since then we have been liaising with the HBBC Planning Department and the

owners to secure a mutually satisfactory conclusion which means that we can get

the pub and they get permission to develop some of the land to the rear of the site as

we have previously shared. We are almost there!

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

We have been so grateful for the ongoing support you have shown over the years

and for the dozens of new followers who have signed up to get our updates over

recent weeks. If you want to sign up or share the link with friends and family, they

can sign up here

The plan is for the Parish Council to purchase the pub and then to lease it to Higham

CBS to refurbish the buildings and set up the pub business. When we have secured

the purchase agreement the CBS will be doing a community shares issue, which

means you can buy bundles of shares to support the business set up and

refurbishment of the pub. If you would like to pledge to buy shares, or donate to the

CBS, you can do so via the website.

If you are not already signed up to use the Easyfundraising app then we’d encourage

you to do so – we keep finding shops that we didn’t know were on it! I even recently

ordered some (more!) plants for the garden via Gardening Direct which is now a ‘favourite’ on my app! Head on over to the Easyfunding website for more information.

So, keep an eye out for more community fundraising events in the autumn and

information on the progress of the negotiations and community meetings to allow you to find out more about the business and our vision for revitalising the pub to create a community hub in the heart of the village.