Campaign To Save The Provenance Pub

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Bid to get threatened pub listed as community asset

A petition has been launched to register the threatened Provenance pub in Colliers Wood as an Asset of Community Value.

Owners Punch Taverns have put the popular pub, which has been managed by Antic London for a year, up for sale.

It is understood the High Street pub is set for imminent closure - possibly before the end of February.

But a number of local residents are campaigning to save the pub, and Andrew Bowden has set up a petition on Merton Council's website calling for the pub to be added as an Asset of Community Value.

Getting a pub listed as an Asset of Community Value gives a timespan of six months if the pub is put up for sale to give the community chance to consider options for saving it.

Mr Bowden says on the petition: "The Provenance public house on Colliers Wood High Street is currently being in the process of being sold by its owners, Punch Taverns.

"Due to the size of the building, it is highly likely that the pub will be the target of those wishing to close it and redevelop it as flats, or as a mini-supermarket. This will lead to the loss of a vital community space.

"In the last 12 months the Provenance public house has hosted parent and baby groups, craft fairs and a film festival, as well as being a popular meeting place for residents. It is a friendly community pub; a place where all can meet, relax and unwind. Should this building be taken over by a supermarket chain this community asset will be lost forever.

"We call on Merton to do everything in its power to support this public house, and help keep it in use for the community."

Geoff Strawbridge, pubs officer of CAMRA's SW London branch, said: "It is a travesty that registration of an Asset of Community Value does not as such extinguish automatically any permitted development rights that might devalue the asset by discontinuing its cherished use without the opportunity for public consultation that a requirement for a planning application would provide.

"So Merton could register a pub as an Asset of Community value only to see it converted to a supermarket or demolished notwithstanding. Lambeth registered the George IV on Brixton Hill; it is now a Tesco Express.  Wandsworth registered the Castle in Battersea High Street; it is now a building site. So I am afraid I do not encourage people to think that by having their pubs registered as ACVs, that would stop them being trashed. It won't. 

"CAMRA is encouraging local councils to adopt resolutions under the provisions of the Sustainable Communities Act that would require Government to address the anomaly of the permitted development rights that so shamefully override the pub protection policies of councils like Merton."

Mitcham and Morden MP Siobhain McDonagh has got involved, and has been trying to contact the CEO of Punch Taverns. She has agreed to keep the campaigners updated.

February 12, 2014