Campaigners' regret after fight to save pub fails

Heritage campaigners who wanted to save a city's landmark pub building have said they were never given a proper chance to make their vision a reality.

Preston City Council last week took the final decision to demolish the Tithebarn, which dates back to 1793, after seven months of debate.

The Preserving Preston's Heritage (PPH) group wanted to create a heritage centre in part of the building.

But the council ruled the structure was "unstable and unsafe" and should be brought down completely.

The estimated bill for saving even just the ground floor-level facade of the building facing Lord Street was put at £150,000, while other parts of the building also needed a complete overhaul to survive.

A further £350,000 would have been needed to put up a new building on the land.

The council ruled it was not feasible and the pub should be bulldozed.

Glenn Cookson, one of the directors of PPH, said that "rather than give us a grace period to go away and secure funding", the council "said that they were going to look for an alternative future".

He added that "then their alternative future was that it was still going to be demolished anyway".

"Of course, we couldn't secure funding without the council giving us permission and contracts being signed to say that we had rights to apply for funding on behalf of that building," he said.

However, despite the disappointment of losing the Tithebarn, Cookson said the group he helped establish to preserve Preston's past was now looking to a more positive future of working in co-operation with the council to achieve other, mutual aims.

He said the group had secured some follow-up discussions to "talk about small, quick-win projects".

Deputy city council leader Martyn Rawlinson said he could not "justify" the cost of propping up the Tithebarn, nor the risk of "handing it over to a relatively new group who do not have a penny to invest in it".

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