Villagers hail £440,000 campaign 'success' in bid to save Cambridgeshire pub
The Ickleton Lion was put up for sale last year
Last updated 23rd Sep 2024
A community group has said it never thought they'd be able to raise close to the sum needed to save their Cambridgeshire village pub.
The Ickleton Lion - which dates back to 1728 - was closed in July last year and put up for sale by owners Greene King.
Since then, £440,000 has been raised by the Ickleton Lionhearted group, which has set up a community benefit society called Ickleton Community Pub Limited, to try and buy the pub.
With the amount raised so far, it would allow the group to put an offer forward to Greene King to buy the village's last remaining pub and, if successful, start refurbishment work on it.
The group also secured a £45,000 grant from the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority in partnership with charity Plunkett UK to help support the purchase and potential future refurbishment, if the bid is successful.
Rachel Radford is chair of Ickleton Lionhearted:
"We thought we'll never do it to have to raise £450,000 just from the community, to be honest it was going to be a real struggle and yet here we are; it's absolutely amazing," she said.
"We've stayed positive and it has all paid off.
"We've had an incredible team with all sorts of different skills to make this campaign a success."
"The building needs a lot of love and care"
In the last 10 weeks, Ickleton Community Pub Limited has welcomed 420 shareholders, as well as holding a series of fundraising events including an afternoon tea attended by South Cambridgeshire MP Pippa Heylings.
And as well as current and former Ickleton resident, the campaign has also received support from as far as Toronto, Canada and Wisconsin in the United States.
Only bids from community interest groups can be considered by Greene King up until September 24, before more offers are allowed.
Ms Radford said if the community benefit society is successful in its bid, there will be plenty of work to do.
"There is a lot to do inside the pub; it's been empty for more than a year, it's gone through a winter without proper heating, the building needs a lot of love and care and we need to get more money for that," she added.
"Our plan is it's not just a pub, but a community hub; we want to make it dementia friendly so we can have lunches for carers, people with dementia or neurodiverse.
"A village without a pub is missing something; it's a place for people to meet, but there have been research studies that show those pubs play an important part in creating social cohesion and inclusion."
Community group offer being reviewed
A spokesperson for Greene King said selling the Ickleton Lion was "a difficult decision.
"We can confirm we’ve received an offer from the Ickleton Lionhearted group, which we are in the process of reviewing.
"We hope to share more good news on this in the near future.”