Rally Round the Tally !

Rally Round the TallyThe owners of Littlehempston’s village pub, the Tally Ho, have applied for planning permission to convert it into a private house.  The notices were first spotted on Friday 28th September, and on Wednesday 3rd October about 15 concerned residents turned up at the parish council meeting.  The parish council decided to call an Extraordinary General Meeting on Wednesday 17th October at 7.30 pm in the Church so that they can find out what Littlehempston people think and feel about the possible loss of their pub.

You can see the planning applications on the South Hams District Council’s website.  There are three applications altogether – here are links to them all:

If you click on any of those links, and then click on View Plans and Documents you’ll find there are a lot of documents available for you to view and download. The most interesting seem to be the Supporting Statements, which set out landlord Phil Saint’s reasons for making these applications, and the Historic Building Assessments, which give a thoroughly researched and comprehensive history of the Tally Ho.

Josephine Brown MA MSc IHBC, who wrote the Historic Building Assessment, ends her conclusion with these words “… the Tally Ho Inn has played a central role in the life of the village for approximately 350 years.”

So what can you do if you don’t want that central role to end forever ? Here are some suggestions:

  • Find out more at the Extraordinary General Meeting on Wednesday 17th October and let the parish council know what you think. If our Parish Council recommend refusing these applications, then it at least means that they will be considered by SHDC’s full planning committee (i.e. by District Councillors), rather than be delegated to planning officers.
  • Write to SHDC objecting to these applications.  That can be done by e-mail (from the SHDC Planning web pages we’ve linked to above), or by ordinary post – and it would help if all e-mails and letters could be copied to Littlehempston Parish Council here or to:
    Mrs L Jensen, Clerk to LHPC
    2 Afton Tor Cottages
    Berry Pomeroy
    TOTNES
    TQ9 6NH
    All e-mails and letters to SHDC planning department must be received by them by 24th October, so there isn’t long to write in, but it’s worth spending a bit of time finding out the most effective arguments to use in favour of refusing these applications. Bear in mind that if SHDC are to refuse them, they will want to do so on planning grounds. Have a look at SHDC’s Local Development Framework Development Policies Development Plan Document. Section DP9 on pages 34 to 36 makes very interesting reading.
  • Write to your SHDC Councillor Rose Rowe here or at:
    Rydon Mead
    Paignton Road
    Stoke Gabriel
    TOTNES
    TQ9 6QQ
  • Write to your Devon County Councillor Trevor Pennington here or at:
    44 Moorview
    Marldon
    Paignton
    TQ3 1PL
  • Write to your MP Dr Sarah Wollaston at:
    House of Commons
    London
    SW1A 0AA

There seems to be lots of good practical and objective advice around about how to save our local pub.  We quickly came across this CAMRA website which looks very helpful.

It’s important to remember that there are three planning applications. The first two apply to the pub itself, but the third applies to the barn which is currently used as B&B or self catering accommodation. You don’t have to respond to all the applications in the same way. For example, you may be happy to see the barn split off, converted and sold as a dwelling, as that would make the pub a more viable business.

Finally, if you have any difficulty accessing any of the websites or downloading any of the documents that we’ve linked to in this news item, or if you’d like to get involved in fighting these applications, please contact us !

This news item was originally published on www.littlehempston.com.