A plan to turn an historic York pub into flats has been recommended for approval by planning officers.
The owners of The Jubilee on Balfour Street already have permission to create three flats in the building, while keeping a smaller public house.
They say no one’s interested in running the pub and have now applied to turn the whole building into six flats.
But critics and campaigners say no one wants to run the pub because it has been left to go to ruin.
YorkMix ran a series of photographs supplied to us by a concerned party last summer, showing the interior of the building had been utterly trashed.
The saga of the Jubilee has been a long-running one. York Campaign for Real Ale, which has been fighting to retain the pub, says owner Tri-Core Developments has submitted eight planning applications to date.
Tri-Core says no viable or credible offers have been received to run The Jubilee as a pub. Christie & Co have been marketing it as a pub and has had two viewings in 19 months.
“One was a long and well-established licensed premises owner, although following the viewing they declined to proceed,” a report to the council states.
But York Camra says the planning inspector who approved the plan for a smaller pub gave a “clear instruction” that Tri-Core “carry out repairs to the ground floor to make it into something that would be marketable to potential pub operators”.
“No such work has been undertaken.
“The ground floor space allocated for a pub has been left to further deteriorate and so it could be reasonably contended that this has been a deliberate decision on the part of Tri-Core, in order to make the ground floor space allocated for a public house as undesirable as possible to potential investors.”
Holgate councillor Lucy Steels-Walshaw agrees. “Since the public house was closed in 2016 it has been allowed to go to ruin,” she wrote in an objection to the plans.
“There has been little, if any, maintenance of the building and it has been deliberately neglected to try and put off interested parties and increase the burden on the leaseholder.”
She had been working closely with one potential buyer who wanted to run it as a pub. “This prospective buyer has tried many times to view the property but has been prevented stating he needed to provide proof of funds.”
She added: “It was predicted that the planning application would be submitted following little to no effort to try and retain the building as something that is greatly wanted and needed in the community.”
York Camra’s objection says the developer has always had the same aim: “Only the total conversion of the building to residential accommodation is their acceptable outcome and they have done everything possible to ensure this eventuality.
“They are relying on wearing down the local community and planning officials through a lengthy and sustained strategy of countless applications – forever changing the goalposts in the hope that they will get their initial desired outcome – and obviously financial rewards.”
The Jubilee was opened in 1897 to the designs of nationally renowned York based architect, Walter Brierley for the Tadcaster Tower Brewery. “It was purpose-built to serve travelling railway operatives and the local Leeman Road community of mostly railway workers,” the council report says.
The Jubilee has been listed as an Asset of Community Value since 2016, the year it closed. This gives local communities the chance to bid for land and facilities deemed to be of local value.
A report to next Thursday’s planning committee recommends that the application to turn The Jubilee into six flats with no pub is approved.
Officers say they have taken “a balanced judgement, having regard to the heritage significance of the building, and the substantial weight of using suitable brownfield land within settlements”.
You can read the full report going to the planning committee on 30 January here.