THE group trying to save The Britannia Inn for the local community is stepping up its efforts after plans were unveiled to turn the empty pub into a house and build four more houses in the pub grounds.
The pub’s owners, Wellington Pub Company, have submitted a planning application to Somerset Council to turn the pub on Bath Road, Wells, into a four-bedroom house, with two two-bedroom houses and two three-bedroom houses in the garden area behind the pub.
The Brit, as it is widely known, closed more than four years when the landlords retired, and community group the East Wells Community Benefit Society (CBS) has been trying to raise the funds to buy and reopen it as a pub and community hub. A second share offer is running until January 2 in a bid to add to the more than £76,000 raised in the first share offer earlier this year.
Mark O’Callaghan spoke on behalf of the East Wells CBS at Wells City Council’s Planning Advisory Committee meeting on November 6 to object to the planning application.
He thanked the council for its help in securing the pub’s status as an Asset of Community Value that has, he said, saved it from the immediate threat of redevelopment. He told the meeting that the East Wells CBS had recently obtained a further six-month moratorium on the sale of the site which runs until March 19, 2026.
As wells as the second share offer, Mr O’Callaghan said that the society “is also in discussions with a local ‘angel investor’ with a view to obtaining additional low-cost finance, and is actively continuing to pursue other funding opportunities”.
He said that there is real interest in the campaign now, with a campaign song and video gaining interest across social media, and that the society intends to have a stall in Wells Market on certain days between now and the new year to encourage uptake of the second share offer.
Some of the assertions in the applicant’s viability report are wrong, he said, and it would be premature to allow the application to go ahead.
The committee’s decision was to object to the granting of permission on the grounds that the moratorium was in place.
Song and video gaining interest
THE East Wells Community Benefit Society’s campaign song and video, called Remember The Britannia Inn, have been gaining interest across social media.
Filmed by supporter, Michael Flynn, the group hope that the video will encourage people to take up their second community share offer, which only has one month left to run. The group are urging those who wish to buy shares in the project to save The Britannia Inn, to do so without delay.
They will be at the Christmas Market on the Cathedral Green on Saturday, December 6, to promote their community share offer, which closes on January 2, 2026. More at https://eastwellscbs.org/
They hope to have more stalls at the weekly market in the run-up to Christmas.