Thame Village Pub Change Use Rejected

AN application to make lawful the use of a closed village pub near Thame as a private house, has been rejected by Thame Town Council.
The daughter of the pub’s owner, Mr A Brunner, has apparently been living in what was The Royal Oak in Moreton, near Thame, for two years, despite a previous planning application for change of use to residential being rejected by the planning authorities.
Almost half the residents of Moreton itself attended that original planning meeting of Thame Town Council, to protest at the loss of what they saw as, the social hub of village.
Poor trading performance forced the closure of The Royal Oak in 1999.
At a meeting of the town council’s Planning Committee yesterday (04/09), Cllr David Dodds questioned whether the business has been marketed as a pub for the required amount of time required by planning policy, before the decision to apply to turn the building into a private house, was taken.
Cllr Richard Walker, himself a pub Licensee in Thame, said that in his opinion The Royal Oak was mis-managed and that if the business had come up for sale, he would buy it himself.”
The committee concluded that it did not agree that the use of the building as a single dwelling house, was ‘Lawful Development.’

NB A Lawful Development Certificate is a statutory document “confirming that the use, operation or activity named in the document is ‘lawful’ for planning control purposes,” i.e. it provides protection against subsequent enforcement action being taken against the use that had been confirmed as ‘established.’