Counter plans lodged for new pub in Bratton Fleming

Plans have been lodged for a new community hub with pub, shop and post office at Bratton Fleming’s Millennium Green to replace the village’s former White Hart pub.

Businessman Philip Milton has applied to North Devon Council to replace the temporary village shop on the car park site with the new facilities plus manager’s accommodation above.

Mr Milton, a financial adviser, does not own the site but does own the redundant pub opposite. He says the Millennium Green site is a far better and safer option for the pub and hub people in the village are calling for.

It is the latest in the 12 year saga of the White Hart, which has been closed since 2012, two years before Mr Milton purchased it. Repeated planning applications to reopen it as a pub with limited housing to make the development viable have been rejected. An application for housing only was rejected at appeal last year.

Above: The former White Hart pub at Bratton Fleming

Anyone can submit a planning application whether they own a site or not and Bratton Fleming Community Group Ltd, which has been campaigning for the reopening of the White Hart, secured planning permission for a ‘hub’ in the White Hart building.

It is unclear who owns the Millennium Green site. Bratton Fleming Parish Council appears to own at least part of it, but there is suggestion the Millennium Green Trust owns some.

At its meeting on March 20, the parish council recommended refusal for the new application and said it was ‘bemused’ by it.

Councillors said they wanted to see the White Hart brought back into use and said Mr Milton’s plan would prejudice a future housing development earmarked in the local plan for the proposed site. It was also suggested a pub at the car park would disturb neighbouring properties.

Mr Milton maintains the White Hart is not financially viable to reopen as a pub, without adding residential properties to make it worthwhile.

In the past the community group offered to buy the building but Mr Milton has said previously the £150,000 offer was far below costs and with no evidence of available funds.

He says with its position right on the road and next to a school, it is a dangerous place for a pub in a modern setting and believes Millennium Green would be a far better alternative.

He told the Gazette: “The group’s action to lodge a plan on our property – which we were not consulted on - encouraged us to realise the best option for what the community really says it needs is an alternative brown field site already owned by the community, so nothing would be needed to buy it. 

“We have given them an outline plan and they can then design and construct exactly what they need - a utilitarian building with all the latest facilities and flat access satisfying all needs, rather than a redundant and totally unsuitable property in the wrong, dangerous place.

“I was also bemused at the council’s response quoting the Local Plan.  Our application also notes manager’s accommodation above the pub/shop hub and not four homes. This application meets the criteria in the Local Plan and does not conflict with the potential to build up to 25 houses to the edge of the site.”

In a comment on Facebook, the community group said it was not consulted about the plan and did not support it, ‘which we consider to be undeliverable and not in the interests of the village’.

The Gazette has twice approached the parish council for comment, but has as yet received no response.