Colchester City Council Preferred Options Local Plan Regulation 18 Consultation 2025

The Campaign for Pubs supports the inclusion of Policy CS1 as it offers protection to public houses and that these are identified as valuable community facilities. This protection could be strengthened if the following measures are added.

1. To “evidence of marketing requirements” - expand that ‘realistic market value’ for a public house means that the pub has been valued as a public house and not as a private house or development site (justification - the value of a private house or development site is usually higher that that of a public house and could discourage potential purchasers from taking on the premises as a business).

2. Viability - applications for Change of Use of a public house should be accompanied by a report undertaken by an independent Chartered Surveyor, to demonstrate that the pub is unable to trade viably. The Campaign for Pubs can provide independent guidance to assist with assessment of the validity of this report, if required.

3. In Justification, we would encourage, as other councils have done (e.g. Norwich City Council), that public houses protected by Policy CS1 are listed as an appendix. The listing could be headed as follows:
“The following public houses are subject to protection under policy CS1. Pubs merit protection for their value as community and heritage assets, whether designated or undesignated. This may include their intrinsic value as longstanding community facilities irrespective of any architectural or historic merit they may possess. Inclusion of a pub on this list does not imply that it would necessarily qualify as an asset of community value under Section 87 of the Localism Act 2011.”