Plans for 300-year-old pub are approved

The owner of a 300-year-old pub said they aimed to bring it back into use by adding guest rooms to the building and building homes next door.

The Hunworth Bell, known as The Hunny Bell close to Holt in Norfolk, has been closed since May 2024.

Plans to redevelop the site by the Stody Estate were controversial as they also included putting properties on part of the pub's car park.

Dozens of people objected but revised plans, which will see the houses built on neighbouring land instead, have been approved by North Norfolk District Council (NNDC).

Since the Hunny Bell closed, villagers have been fighting to see it reopened and a fundraising campaign managed to raise £750,000 to purchase it, but this was rejected by the Stody Estate.

However, it was also designated as an Asset of Community Value (ACV), meaning it must remain as a pub.

Initial plans put forward by the estate would have seen the bar area reduced to make four guest bedrooms, with 10 new homes built on parts of the car park.

The estate said the bedrooms were needed to make the pub viable, but it was the loss of parking - vital for a countryside pub - which proved controversial.

Dozens of objections were lodged and the number of homes were scaled back to six, including two affordable properties, with them to be built on adjacent agricultural land.

Stody with Hunworth Parish Council opposed the initial designs but later said it was in support.

In its comment to the district council, it said: "Residents requested that Stody Estate do the work on the pub as quickly as possible so the Hunny Bell can reopen and be back at the heart of the local community."

The estate's managing director, Charlie MacNicol, told a meeting of NNDC's planning committee it had "listened carefully to concerns".

"We have routinely subsidised the pub, but still, it has failed in its current form - this proposal is about fixing that," he said.

He added the new homes planned would be the "first new houses in Hunworth in over 40 years".

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