Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Private school in bid to restore village pub to its former glory
Finishing touches made to medical centre following merger of practices
A historic village pub which has stood empty for a decade is set to be restored to its former glory - by one of Kent’s most prestigious private schools.
The Swan Inn in Sturry High Street called last orders for the final time in 2011 and has been vacant ever since.
But The Junior King’s School wants to transform it into “the premier licensed premises in the village” - by relaunching it as a pub and bed-and-breakfast. The £9,000-a-term school purchased the Grade Ii-listed site, parts of which are thought to date back to the 1400s, several years ago.
The boarded-up tavern had deteriorated over the years and been targeted by vandals, but has recently undergone renovation.
Last year, The Junior King’s School was granted permission to transform the Swan Inn’s ground floor into a café, with accommodation for school staff upstairs.
But new plans show the private co-ed now wants to relaunch it as a pub, while developing the restaurant side of the business, and letting out rooms to tourists.
It hopes to build a single-storey block in the pub grounds that will house six double bedrooms; along with a two-storey extension behind the main building that would accommodate a kitchen, storage and staff facilities.
It also intends to revamp the inn’s outside areas, and to resurface the car park, keeping its current capacity of about 12 cars.
But the application has already been met with several objections.
Sturry Parish Council says there is “insufficient off-road parking” to accommodate both bed-and-breakfast guests and pub visitors.
The plans would see the pub open at 10am each day, staying open until 1.30am on Fridays and Saturdays and until midnight the rest of the week. But the parish council says the proposed weekend opening hours are “excessive for a premises in a residential area”. Sturry resident Garry Smith echoes these concerns, describing the parking as “woefully inadequate for a development of this size”.
“The proposed late-night opening on Friday and Saturday nights will be intolerable, with the inevitable shouting, doors slamming and loud engines,” he added, suggesting a midnight closing time would be more appropriate.
“This is a large-scale development of a historic listed building that will undoubtedly spoil the character and heritage of the building forever.”
But the applicant says the pub would be a “quality business” that it hopes would “become part of the local scene with an image befitting the character of old Sturry village”.
It adds: “It is anticipated that any parking required in connection with the rooms will only occur overnight and in the late evening, when the car park is otherwise not used by pub customers.”
The Junior King’s School hopes the historic inn will function “very much as it did prior to closing down in 2011”. But it hopes that focusing more on food and offering bedand-breakfast facilities will provide a more economically viable business model than that of a traditional pub.
“The intention is that the reinvigorated Swan Inn would act as a focus for the village but also be attractive as a base for tourists wishing to visit Canterbury and east Kent,” say the plans. If given the green light, the business would employ five to 10 people, and would “represent a significant investment in the local economy of Sturry, bringing trade, employment and staying tourists to the village environment”, it adds.
The plans are available to view on the city council’s planning website, under reference CA/20/02882.
A multi-million pound super GP surgery is set to open in the city later this month, catering for 15,000 patients. Contractors are putting the finishing touches to and installing equipment at the new Canterbury Medical Practice, which has been built at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital site and will offer 12 consulting rooms, three nurse rooms and an enhanced treatment room. The surgery, which opens on Monday, February 22, will be the biggest of its kind in the city, replacing both the Cossington House and London Road surgeries, which were in converted Victorian houses.
They were deemed by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to be outdated and “challenged” to deliver primary care services or cope with the predicted increase in patient numbers from proposed housing developments. Construction work has been held up due to the coronavirus
pandemic, delaying the opening date, which had been expected in December.
The new-build, which includes a 30-space car park, will be managed by the umbrella group, also named Canterbury Medical Practice, which runs centres on the outskirts of the city in
Bridge and Littlebourne.
It will combine the workload of the soon-to-be-closed Cossington House and London Road surgeries.
It was also due to include a pharmacy but an application has been lodged to remove that element in favour of an additional
consulting room.
All patients currently registered at the Cossington House and London Road surgeries are being informed of the move. Bridge Health Centre and Littlebourne Surgery, which are branch surgeries of Canterbury Medical Practice, will remain in their current premises and are unaffected by the change. Practice bosses say patients’ registration and records with the surgery will not be affected and the phone number, services and staff will remain the same. Emma Ray, executive manager at Canterbury Medical Practice said: “Although we have a fondness for the beautiful surgery buildings at Cossington House and London Road, our new premises will make such a difference to our patients’ experiences.
“We’re looking at how we can use the space to its maximum potential and working with local stakeholders and other healthcare providers to make sure we can provide the excellent care in a first-class setting that our patients deserve.”
It is one of the UK’S first newbuild GP premises projects to have received capital funding from NHS England’s Estates and Technology Transformation Fund.
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