Success on the Article 4 Direction campaigners had fought for, and I’d been hoping for even though I haven’t exactly campaigned. I did though send an email to Dafydd Williams, rather late on, and so did many people before me. He was ‘inundated’ with messages about the Punch Bowl, he said during the decision meeting held a few days ago. The meeting can be viewed below. The relevant bit is at 12 mins 41. Nick Love and Paul Crossman stating the case, and Cllrs Williams and Levene commenting. Only short, and worth a watch.

This isn’t just about the Punch Bowl. Or rather it is just about the Punch Bowl, at the moment, in that the Article 4 Direction is being applied only to this particular pub. Perhaps more in the future after further research.

Also on this (set up to start at the right place) link.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that the pub will never be replaced by a supermarket. What it does mean is summed up by Paul Crossman in this piece in The Press:

It means there will be a planning application and that’s all it means, but it gives the opportunity for consultation for the community and that’s what we want.

So, good news, and warmly welcomed.

The recent situation regarding the Corner House is mentioned in the recording above, and has also been covered in The Press: CAMRA hit out at brewery over supermarket deal.

More information

The decision notice from City of York Council (PDF) on the Article 4 Direction for the Punch Bowl.

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The Corner House pub awaits its glorious future as a Tesco store. It has already been renamed, apparently. Amazing how quickly that was done. On official records like the council’s planning pages it may still be known as The Corner House, 165-167 Burton Stone Lane, but in recent weeks it has appeared on property websites under the new name of ‘Tesco Investment’.

Source: www.propertypilot.co.uk, Corner House

In recent days, more details have become available. The property is being sold for £725,000 and a 20-year lease to Tesco is in place. They’re getting the first six months rent free. Is that a common arrangement? I’ve got no idea. Anyway, it’s opening in the spring, apparently, and will look like that image above. Or something like it. Not sure that doorway arrangement with aisles running diagonally from the corner is an accurate representation. There’ll be a planning application at some point with more detail, presumably. There must be some kind of planning application at some stage, surely.

No steam engine or slaughterhouse

The PDFs available on that link above are worth a look, particularly the Register Plans document, as it gives us a bit of the history of this plot of land, this place where a pub was since the 1930s. The old deeds contain some rules about what’s not allowed:

‘NO steam engine furnace blacksmiths shop slaughterhouse or building for the purpose of carrying on any offensive trade or manufacture shall be erected built used or kept upon the pieces or parcels of land intended to be hereby conveyed … The Purchaser shall not excavate for gravel sand or other materials to be used in the making of roads or otherwise nor use any clay for the manufacturing of bricks which may be found in the pieces or parcels of land’

Source (PDF)

Meanwhile, at the Punch Bowl

Elsewhere, slightly more hopeful signs that this ‘suddenly there’s a Tesco’ thing won’t be able to keep happening unchecked.

Here on my patch, not far away from the Corner House/Tesco Investment, is the Punch Bowl, also previously discussed. Campaigners are hoping to give some protection to it and other pubs through an Article 4 Direction.

Though the council hasn’t yet decided whether it’s prepared to go for an Article 4 Direction, as the meeting to decide that has been postponed (decision due at a meeting this week, apparently), there was a motion from Cllr D’Agorne on the subject at the council meeting on Thursday just gone. (Point (iv) in this document (PDF)).

‘Council calls on Cabinet to follow the example of other councils by swiftly introducing an Article 4 exemption to GPDO 1995 so as to require application for planning permission for such change of use within the boundary of the City of York, starting with the Punch Bowl in the Groves as an urgent priority. In addition Council supports the provision of advice to local groups on how to register their local pub as a ‘community asset’, identifying key social assets in local communities that need to be protected.’

It was followed by an interesting discussion with general agreement.

If this is the new style ‘fresh start’ politics then I hope we see more of it.

Here’s the video of the relevant part of the meeting, with this motion and discussion at 1 hr 15 mins in (or cued to start in the right place on this link.

If you’d like to encourage the council to put the Article 4 Direction in place, you might like to send an email to cllr.dwilliams@york.gov.uk politely indicating that you support this idea and would like them to get on with it before the Punch Bowl turns into a Tesco.

Personally I think it’s about time more attention was paid to things like this, to what’s going on beyond the city walls in the wider area where most of the council tax payers live, and I’m hoping that part of the ‘fresh start’ we’re supposed to be having will see the council doing that.

Too late for the Corner House, sadly.

Thanks to Nick and Bryan for updates.

More information: Article 4 Direction

The council has apparently already approved an Article 4 Direction in 2011 to try to control another issue, that of houses being turned into HMOs. More information here. They’re used for many different purposes, and are apparently used a lot in Brighton and Hove to protect heritage assets.

And here’s a very helpful article on the subject, with context and background.

More on the Corner House/Marston’s/Tesco situation

. . . . .

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1852 plan (© City of York Council. Source: york1852.org)

Here’s an extract from the rather beautiful 1852 plan of York. The corner of Haxby Road and Lowther Street, where the Punch Bowl is. As you can see, in the 1850s it’s shown as part of a line of terraced houses called Clarence Place.

Rather difficult to find any further information initially, with the main library in town closed for refurbishment, and no answers forthcoming from my own small reference library at home. Then I remembered that this fantastic online resource has the relevant RCHME volume, which includes this information on the building(s) of the pub, and the houses next to it in this terrace:

(141) The Punch Bowl Hotel and Houses, Nos. 2–12 (even), were called Clarence Place in 1850 (OS) and some or all of them were built by 1838 (Directory).

The Punch Bowl Hotel is possibly a remodelling of two of the houses in Clarence Place on the 1852 OS map but has been altered out of recognition. Nos. 2 and 4 form a pair, but No. 2 is now incorporated into the hotel. The doorways together form a unified composition with three fluted pilasters with Ionic capitals and a frieze with paterae and incised fret ornament. No. 2 has a segmental bow window with similar frieze to the ground floor. Nos. 6, 8, 10 have bay windows with canted sides which are probably additions.

Source: www.british-history.ac.uk

I have no idea what it’s like inside, as I haven’t been in it for years, and must have a nosy sometime. But as I said on the earlier page, I think it’s a very attractive building in its setting.

Those low walls running from the front of the building to the road, strange subdivisions in the beer garden area, make sense now, presumably reflecting the boundaries of the original plots of the houses of Clarence Place.

There’s a really nice photo in the city archives of the side view of the pub, from Lowther Street, looking towards the Clarence St/Haxby Rd/Wigginton Rd junction:

Lowther St and the Punch Bowl, 1950s © City of York Council

Slightly wonky — perhaps the photographer had just left the pub. But the most striking thing about this photo, apart from the wonky angle, is the close proximity of the pub and the chapel. This view reminds us that when these communities were established the chapel and the pub were both considered important meeting places. Groves Chapel has for a while now been redundant as a place of worship. But the pub is far from redundant, and is still valued by the community.

If you’re interested in present day comparisons: the Google Street View of the above view showing that the exterior on this side has been stripped of some of its original features since.

Into the present

‘Despite difficult market trading conditions, The Punch Bowl is not a moribund hostelry teetering on the brink of viability. If it were, it would be understandable that Enterprise Inns would look to close it. With the present licensee, trade is very much on an upward curve with takings very much increased from the previous incumbents. It is now a thriving irreplaceable local amenity offering valued facilities that are not available to the same extent in the immediate area to the local neighbourhood.’

— is an extract from this letter (PDF). It puts the case — and very persuasively too — for an ‘Article 4 direction’, which is the only thing that could give the pub and others like it any protection.

I’ve ended up spending more time at the Punch Bowl than I intended. Which is so often the way with pubs, isn’t it. Drink up folks, we’re off to the Corner House next, on Burton Stone Lane.

The post The Punch Bowl: then and now appeared first on York Stories.

© Copyright Ian S, via Geograph

Recent stories in the Press highlight concerns that the Punch Bowl pub at the end of Lowther Street may become another Tesco ‘Express’ store. When I first read about this it sounded daft and unlikely, for several reasons. But it seems it has been seen as a genuine possibility, as speakers at a recent council meeting raised the issue and asked for the council’s assistance in protecting the pub.

There are three speakers, who each speak for 3 minutes, and it’s really worth 9 minutes of your time. The first speaker is a customer, Paul Gillier. He’s followed by Paul Crossman, landlord of The Swan pub in Clementhorpe, and Nick Love from York CAMRA, who both speak on the background and wider context. The issue affects many pubs, not just this one. (I’m hearing a lot of references to the ‘pubco’ – pub companies owning a lot of pubs and perhaps wanting to sell these assets.)

The relevant documents are on the council’s website on this link (item 10), with the specific ‘Article 4′ related document on this link (PDF).

I walk past this pub often, either heading down Clarence St past the front of it, or down Lowther Street which goes down the side of it. Here’s the Google Street View, from the perspective of a driver turning into this end of Lowther St. (If the Street View doesn’t show, try the ‘Larger map’ link, it should show up then.)

View Larger Map

This is a very busy junction, at certain times of the day. I know this because I often come home this way and know how long it takes to cross the road. It’s also one of those rather stressful junctions for everyone waiting at it, as four roads meet here, which makes it more complicated. Clarence Street here meets Wigginton Road forking to the left and Haxby Road to the right, and also to the right Lowther Street, all controlled by traffic lights.

Lowther Street is very narrow at this end. It’s perhaps not obvious from this photo just how narrow this part of the road is. As a pedestrian I’ve often been aware of it. This view above makes it clear why that is, because the house on the other side of the street appears to have a strange boundary which overlaps onto the normal pavement width. If you’re walking along here and someone else is walking along here towards you, one person has to step into the road. A narrow road, further narrowed by a car parking space.

How would that work, I wonder, if there was a massive increase in pedestrians coming and going, as there would be if a Tesco Express opened here. Imagine it at rush hour. And the delivery vehicles, coming via Lowther St? Imagine that.

Well, I can’t imagine it actually. It’s a ludicrous idea. I can’t believe it’s being put forward as a possibility.

I can’t find any record of a planning application associated with this, and I can’t see that there will ever be one, because I can see no way it would ever be passed on planning grounds, just based on its location and the access difficulties, for a start.

As in other cases, these situations where valued buildings and community assets are under threat at least make us take proper notice of things we otherwise tend to take for granted. So I’d like to note a couple of things of value about this pub. I’ve noticed them before, and it’s nice to have this opportunity to mention them.

Handsome building

I’d like to draw everyone’s attention to the fact that the Punch Bowl is actually a very attractive building. It looks good on that corner, doesn’t it. I thought it was perhaps an early 20th century build, but have just found one reference to a Punch Bowl Hotel on Lowther St, from 1899 apparently, so maybe it’s older than I thought. It seems to be on the 1909 map (via www.old-maps.co.uk). I haven’t time to research this but perhaps a reader has more information. Or perhaps Hugh Murray’s Directory of York Pubs has more information.

The pub doesn’t seem to be on any list of local heritage assets either, or in the recently published ‘Character Area’ documents for the city, as far as I’m aware. Which seems very odd, considering that it’s quite a landmark on that corner. Again, if you know differently, please add a comment.

Community value

The Groves area behind it has lost two of its pubs in the last decade or so, on Penley’s Grove St running parallel to Lowther St. Both were modern buildings, presumably dating from the 50s or later when the flats were built, and weren’t architecturally attractive, though they did have community value as meeting places. (One, formerly The Reindeer, retains ‘community value’, as it was converted to a Londis store.)

The two remaining pubs, this one and the Castle Howard Ox a stone’s throw away, are both hanging on in there on the boundary of this busy residential area. When I say ‘hanging on in there’ it makes it sound like they’re struggling and dying. Not at all, is my impression. Both the Punch Bowl and the Castle Howard Ox seem popular and always seem to have customers, in the evenings and the afternoon.

What’s nice about the Punch Bowl is that it has a beer garden at the front, overlooking the busy junction. Not everyone’s idea of a beer garden, I guess, if you prefer peaceful and more garden-like beer gardens, but it seems very popular. And it adds something to this place, at the edge of the Groves, to have people visible, socialising, people-watching/traffic-watching. It adds something to the ‘ambience’ of the area too for the bored people sitting in traffic on the commute to and from work, as they have something more interesting to look at than yet another rather soulless mini-supermarket.

I also remember passing one summer evening and hearing loud live music emanating from upstairs. A local band rehearsing, presumably. The immediate neighbours might not have been so keen, but I was cheered up by it, and pleased to see (or rather, hear) that the pub was a proper community hub, with other things going on. We need these places to give heart to our communities.

Not the right place

So, I hope everyone who has any power over this will prevent any attempt by Tesco or indeed anyone else to turn this site into a supermarket, as it’s clearly a ridiculous idea.

I’m not a person who hates mini-supermarkets. I shop in them all the time. They’re obviously successful, but that success makes the area they’re in much busier, and that isn’t always an enhancement in already busy areas congested with traffic and with nowhere to park.

It’s clear though that Tesco are keen to get into the Clifton/Groves area. If this threat comes to nothing and you’re a fan of Tesco it looks like you’ll only need to cross that junction and head up the side of the hospital, over the railway line bridge, towards Burton Stone Lane … which is where we’re going next.

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