Villagers raise £300,000 to save their pub
Added: Tuesday, March 25th 2014
Villagers in the tiny Devon village of Littlehempston have raised £300,000 to save their historic local pub, the Tally Ho Inn. The pub – a favourite watering hole for the late TV chef Keith Floyd – closed in 2011 and was earmarked for private housing.
But 100 of the village’s 207 inhabitants were determined to save the Grade II-listed, 14th century inn. They got the pub listed as an Asset of Community Value, which gave a stay of execution until July 2013 and time for the villagers to raise the money to buy the Tally Ho.
With support from the Plunkett Foundation, the villagers formed the Littlehempston Community Pub Ltd, a co-operative in which people were invited to invest £250 each. The co-op is registered as a provident society and on 17 March it was successful in raising the £300,000 needed to buy the pub.
The Tally Ho is now open for business and on Sunday 23 March laid on a special lunch for Mothers’ Day. Investors in the co-op will be able to claim back 30% of their money from HM Revenue under the government’s Enterprise Investment Scheme. Below: some of the villagers in the co-op seen outside the local church.
