Thanks to Hester and Andy for noticing this …
There was an article in the Herald not long ago with Reg from the Gainsborough Green shop concerned that a Tesco or similar shop would be taking over the Saxton Arms.
Those plans, for a shop at the Saxton Arms, have now been withdrawn, and new plans submitted for 4 x one bed and 1 x two bed apartments with associated car parking.
That means that both the pubs taken over by Hawthorn Leisure Ltd from Greene King in 2014 – the Saxton Arms and the Cross Keys, could now be used as housing. Hawthorn Leisure Ltd did try running them both as pubs for a few months before closing them for a more profitable use
The cynic in me says that hawthorn wanted flats all along. But putting a planning application in for a shop first means less opposition to housing.
Ah yes. If you want a kitten, ask for a pony!
now they just need to find someone who’d pay to live there!
It makes a lot more sense for it to be converted into flats than into a shop. There was not enough room for parking for a shop.
And several hundred people pay to live on Saxton Road, so i’m sure there will be plenty of takers.
Surely Abingdon has reached ‘critical mass’ as far as losing its inventory of established ‘establishments’ goes, maybe we are already beyond that mark. I do understand that less people drink nowadays and less people go out to drink as the supermarkets (despite attempts by the Government to encourage less drinking) sell it cheap. If the town is to expand as is suggested surely no more can be lost, each one is part of the character of the place, SO support your local pub if you can or it’ll be flats and housing like The Crown, Mr Warwicks Arms, The Horse and Jockey, The Plough, The Red Lion, The Ox, The Fitzharris Arms and those above all swallowed up by developers, maybe (probably) the Upper Reaches (although not a pub) will join this list soon… I hope not.
Badger, whilst you are right…there’s no profit in an areas “character”.
True, but it might attract people to it and make it worthwhile living here now and in the future, devoid of character we might as well encourage the people who provide the ‘nice flowers’ to bulldoze the whole lot to emulate some Soviet bloc town from the ’50s or ’60s… oh… hold on a minute… they already are… in a tasteful and unimpeachable way of course 🙂
AND… whilst I’m at it… how long before the Vauxhall garage in Ock Street turns into flats, prime development land if there ever was and Bellingers now have 3 branches within maybe 12 miles of each other… mad not to!?!?!
AND then in years to come… as the Fire Station is also prime building land why not sell that and build anew somewhere on the incomplete ring road or A34 roundabout as the present site is located on a road with a 5mph daytime average speed. I’m sure someone must have felt the same when the proposed building of a Gaol near Abingdon bridge came up in the late 1700 or early 1800’s.
…..give it a couple more years badger.