A pub described as “the best survivor of its type in York” looks set to be demolished to make way for eight homes.
Council officers are recommending that Moorside Developments’ proposal to flatten The Magnet in Osbaldwick Lane is approved.
The plans would see two rows of two-storey homes built on the brownfield land in its place.
Constructed in 1934 by John Smith’s Brewery in-house architect Sir Bertram Wilson, The Magnet is one of the generation of ‘improved’ public houses designed for the spreading suburbs and housing estates of 1930s England.
The pubs, with their emphasis on better amenities and supervision, were the brewers’ answer to the bad image that had befallen the old-style Victorian drinking houses.
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The proposals have attracted significant criticism from Osbaldwick Parish Council, York councillor Mark Warters and York Civic Trust.
Coun Warters said the previous owners of the pub, which closed in 2018, deliberately neglected the building to make it look unappealing and that there had not been a genuine attempt to market it for sale as a pub.
He wrote in his objection: “I fully recognise that the viability of public houses is under pressure as never before with the ongoing pandemic restrictions but it is wholly wrong to suggest that there has been no interest in the building as a pub prior to the current situation and there has been no shortage of interest in schemes to retain the building.”
It was an “audacious attempt to tear down what was a perfectly good building before the current owners deliberate neglect,” he added.
No offers
Previous plans submitted in 2019 were withdrawn because the developer could not show that enough had been done to find a new landlord for the pub to justify knocking it down.
A viability assessment or trading accounts from when it was last open have not been provided, but according to the planning agent, the previous owners, Enterprise Inns, said that beer sales at The Magnet dropped by 23.5 per cent between 2012 – 2017.
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The council commissioned its own independent review of the marketing process, which found that it had been sound.
York Theatre Royal and a church expressed interest in the building, but neither went on to make an offer.
There was no interest from any pub operator, independent or community pub and no application was made for the pub to become an Asset of Community Value.
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A council report states: “It is concluded that should an interested party wished seriously to purchase The Magnet, they would have come to light and a sale progressed.”
But the council’s conservation consultant noted: “The loss would be locally-significant in terms of the architectural and historical interest of the Osbaldwick Lane and Tang Hall area and significant within the city as a whole based on the assessment by CAMRA that it is the best-preserved example of an improved pub.”
Councillors on the area planning sub-committee will vote on the proposals on Thursday, March 10.