A village’s only pub has gone up for sale after a bid to turn it into a house was snubbed.
The Chequers Inn in Stone Street, Petham, has been shut for more than a year after former licensees Paula Gilbert and Steve McHugh were forced out due to dwindling income.
Before the pair took over in May 2022, the boozer had been closed since 2019 – with Paula left frustrated with punters who had clamoured for the pub to reopen just to not turn up while they tried to turn its fortunes around.
With multiple attempts to turn the venue into a residential dwelling falling through, the 19th-century Petham inn has now appeared on the market.
Marketed by Sidney Phillips, it could command a fee of £450,000 and can host 75 people across the dining room, bar and snug.
It also benefits from having a kitchen, a garden, a sizeable car park and accommodation upstairs for the use of the landlord.
The sale comes as owners Lorna Monica Sukhdeo and Daniel Taylor grow fed up of seeing efforts to turn the boozer into a house rejected.
They claim the pub “has not been viable for 13 years”, and any tenants taking it on were forced to work for less than minimum wage to make ends meet.
But the pleas fell on deaf ears, with the latest bid thrown out by the Planning Inspectorate in April.
They stated: “The application was refused on the basis of failure to provide sufficient marketing and financial evidence to show that the business is no longer viable and that there was no interest and/or demand for the community facility.
“The inspector agreed, commenting that there was no alternative provision for a similar type of use within an acceptable walking distance, and both the financial and marketing information submitted was insufficient in demonstrating that the existing pub use was no longer viable.
“For these reasons, the appeal was dismissed.”
