Windmill Flats plan consent withdrawn after legal threat
THE man who wants to buy and save a Bristol pub has successfully overturned a decision by council planners to allow it to be turned into flats – as residents renew their battle to keep it.
The owners of the Windmill pub in the Windmill Hill area of Bedminster thought they had been given planning permission last year to convert it into flats, after Bristol City Council’s planning committee voted to approve the controversial scheme.
But on Wednesday, the application returns to city council planners for a second time, because Nick James, who had been making offers to buy the pub and reopen it last year, threatened to challenge the decision through the courts, and secured a rethink.
The council withdrew the previous planning consent after Mr
James raised the prospect of a judicial review and the council conceded there were grounds to challenge it.
The judicial review challenge, accepted by the council, was that the council planning officers’ report to elected councillors had failed to properly consider the pub as an asset of community value and failed to consider the effect of the loss of the pub on equalities, as it is legally obliged to do.
The legal challenge also accused the council of not properly applying policies that specify the circumstances under which a pub or community facility can be lost.
The renewed application has been processed by the same planning officer, and they stand by their original recommendation that the proposals are acceptable and are recommending approval.
Eighty-four residents objected to the plans from Bar Wars to convert The Windmill into two one-bedroom and three two-bedroom flats when they were submitted a year ago. Three people told the council they supported the plans.
Three residents and a local councillor have objected to the application in the past week, but one neighbour has supported the plans, calling the pub an “ugly eyesore”.
The Windmill closed in March 2020, before the first lockdown, and the community was unable to raise enough money to buy it.
The owners have said they tried as hard as they could to make the pub a success, but they could not make it work as a business and could not sell it as a pub either, despite dropping the price from £525,000 to £495,000. They were planning to sell it with the plans for conversion before the consent was challenged.
The campaigners had tried to buy the pub before last year’s planning permission was granted, but only managed to raise £170,480 towards the asking price.
Now they said they hope the establishment at the corner of Windmill Hill and Eldon Terrace will remain for sale as a pub and that Bar Wars agrees to sell it as a pub, rather than as flats, if the planning application is turned down.
Mr James, who owns a pub in Wells and co-owns the Queen’s pub and restaurant in Chew Magna, said he had had an independent valuation of the pub made at between £315,000 and £400,000, and was prepared to buy it to keep it open, but the owners had held out for almost £500,000.
“I just want it reopened. If someone came along and bought it and reopened it, that’s great, but if no one does, I am prepared to buy it and reopen it,” he said.
Mr James applied for the judicial review of the original decision because he said the planning officers had wrongly advised the councillors. “They said there were 14 pubs within a ten minute walk, but we challenged them to name them. It’s not the point anyway, because this pub is at the heart of this community, and is vital. Any pub can be viable, survive and make a profit if you invest in it, the people and the staff, and this is no exception.”
Residents are again calling on councillors to refuse the application, given the pub has a prospective buyer.
“The pub is a huge part of our community and the last 18 months without it have been terrible,” said Diane James (no relation).
The original planning application, which has now been quashed, was called in by then-councillor Jon Wellington. The new Windmill Hill councillor, Lisa Stone (Green, Windmill Hill), said it was “erroneously” granted and that five more flats were unnecessary in Bedminster, where hundreds of new homes are planned.