Co-op plan for Brighton pub (From The Argus)
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Bevendean community's bid to run pub
3:50pm Thursday 9th February 2012 in News
The Bevendean Hotel is undergoing refurbishment
It is the dream of some to have a say in running their local.
Now a group of community-minded people are looking to club together and set up their own co-operative pub. Residents in Moulsecoomb and Bevendean are behind the plans to take over the former Bevendean Hotel in Hillside.
They say that if they are successful, it will become the first co-op run pub on a city estate in the country - and one of only a handful of inns run by its users.
The site, which was closed by police after a series of violent incidents in 2010, was bought by East Brighton Trust, the successor company to the eb4u New Deal for Communities body.
The trust is renovating the first floor into flats but has asked locals what they want to do with the ground floor.
Campaigner Warren Carter, of Hodshrove Road, Brighton, said the majority backed the idea of a pub supported by local cooperative networks.
Mr Carter said: “It will be a pub with a difference. We’re aware of the history but I think it can be turned around.
“We’re saying it’s not just about the pub, it’s something more than that.”
Before its closure in May 2010, The Bevendean Hotel, which operated for 85 years, was the only pub in a community of about 18,000 people in the surrounding estates.
A group of residents have created a business plan and believe they need to raise about £200,000 to make the dream reality.
The money will be raised through membership shares and larger donations.
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