Residents face new battle over future of village pub

RESIDENTS WHO fought to save a 200-year-old pub have a new battle on their hands after owners submitted revised plans to turn it into housing.

A Government inspector last month dismissed an appeal to turn the Sun Inn on Church Lane in Skirlaugh into five homes.

Owners David and Gillian Furman had appealed against East Riding Council’s refusal of planning permission to allow the pub, which closed in 2018, to be knocked down and the housing built.

They claimed that another pub, The Duke of York, and other community facilities would serve the needs of the community.

But Inspector Diane Cragg said “the strength of opposition suggests that there is, and would continue to be, sufficient demand for a separate drinking establishment”.

The plans for three homes on the front and two bungalows at the back would, she said, “unacceptably harm” neighbours’ ‘living conditions.

The latest proposals submitted to East Riding Council last December are for four dwellings instead – three in the front and one at the back.

A number of residents have objected including one, who said the Sun Inn, a designated asset of community value, was “part of our heritage”.

A key concern is a public right of way through the Sun Inn car park, used by residents of Poplar Close, many of whom are elderly, to get to the village’s Costcutters store and post office.

Villager Stewart Emerson said there was still a need for two pubs in the village and people would use it if someone invested in it and it reopened.

He added: “It wasn’t the most successful pub, but it was on the verge of turning round.”