Time passes as old Clockworks bar set to become a shop and tearoom

TIME is up for a former town centre bar after plans were approved for it to be converted into a shop and tea room.

Clockworks in Biddulph had been up for sale after closing down with its future uncertain.

Now proposals have been passed for the High Street venue to convert the bar back into its original form – a shop complete with a tea room.

While the ground floor will remain as a shop the first floor will become a flat, complete with a living room, kitchen, shower room, and two bedrooms.

Residents have been left divided by the plans with some questioning whether the town’s High Street will be able to sustain the new business.

Michael Ryan, of Biddulph, said: “What we really need in Biddulph is another supermarket, something other than what we already have. There needs to be a small store.

“The cost of shopping seems to be less for people living in Stoke-on-trent so people from Biddulph have to travel into Hanley or Tunstall .

“Another issue is we don’t have much to do in Biddulph at the moment and I don’t personally go to that end of the town much.”

Fellow Biddulph resident Steven James hopes that another florist would be able to open in the former bar.

He said: “I don’t see the problem with the pub being converted into a shop because we have enough bars in

Biddulph as it is.

“It would be nice for it to be another shop, something like a florist, because the ones we have at the moment don’t open all week.”

Staffordshire County councillor Hilda Sheldon, who owns shoe shop Brammers of Biddulph on Station Road, has welcomed the proposal.

She said: “It’s been empty so it will be good to see it come back in to use because it has had a varied history. We are short of restaurants but people need to do what they can with what we have got. I do think the High Street can support more shops because Biddulph is like a large village rather than a town and we don’t have that big of a High Street.

The design and access statement submitted to Staffordshire Moorlands District Council says the existing access to the building will remain the same. It states: “The existing building will be retained with the ground floor reverting back to its original usage of a retail unit, comprising of a retail area, toilets, and a tea room on the ground floor, the basement area will be used for general storage.”

Staffordshire Moorlands

District Council planners approved the scheme.