'Mixed feelings' as century-old Elm Tree Tavern in Peterborough is demolished to make way for new houses

The demolition of a Peterborough pub has brought about “mixed feelings” among local residents and councillors.

Both Cllr Muhammad Asif (Conservatives, Park) and Cllr Arfan Khan (Conservatives, Park) used the phrase to describe local feeling as diggers set to work pulling down The Elm Tree Tavern in their ward.

The pub, on Garton End Road in Dogsthorpe, ceased trading in December last year after its former owners, brewery Admiral Taverns, deemed it to be unviable.

It was then bought by local development company Janish Homes Ltd which was given the go-ahead to flatten it at a Peterborough City Council (PCC) meeting last month to make way for seven new houses.

The pub follows former Peterborough watering holes The Cherry Tree, Dog In A Doublet, the Wortley Almshouses and more in its closure.

“It’s sad to see all these pubs go, but they’re closing for a reason,” Cllr Khan said. “They’re not generating enough income to run the premises and – rather than being abandoned – there is a need for housing.

“I get numerous people contacting me about council housing.”

He added that The Elm Tree was “a nice premises” but that feelings about its demolition have been mixed among his residents, especially as it had shut down anyway.

'If something’s happening legally, you cannot stop it', councillor says

Cllr Asif similarly said that he has “mixed views” on it himself, while locals were split between the need for new houses and the value the pub brought for the local community while still open.

Some were also in favour because, “if it was by the book, the planning application should go through,” he said, referring to Janish Homes’s request to build new houses.

“If something’s happening legally, you cannot stop it,” he added. “We’ve just seen an example of that with the Horsey Bridge application.”

Neither Cllr Asif nor Cllr Khan were councillors when the pub closed; both were elected for the first time in May in a double-win for the Conservatives after the ward's previous Labour councillors, Shaz Nawaz and Ikra Yasin, stepped down.

But Cllr Julie Stevenson (Independent, Orton Waterville), who has been a councillor since 2018, says she doesn’t remember a particular campaign to save The Elm Tree, but that community facilities are important.

“We always hear that we need more housing, and we do, but we need communities,” she said. “We need places for people to enjoy themselves and see each other.”

Cllr Stevenson, a former Green councillor, added that she and other Green Party officials would hold meetings at The Elm Tree because it had space for training and presentations and was at a central location they could all reach.

Its closure is just “another sad sign of the times”, she said, with the pandemic and supply chain issues among those impacting businesses.

Lack of community facilities 'can lead to anti-social behaviour'

If people don’t have places to go, whether they be pubs, community centres or shops, issues such as anti-social behaviour can arise, she added.

“If you don’t give people places to go, just to be and hang out, they start hanging out elsewhere and that’s when you start to get anti-social behaviour, which is terrible at the moment,” Cllr Stevenson said.

Plans for the houses which will replace The Elm Tree have, however, been praised by councillors.

Cllr Peter Hiller (Peterborough First, Glinton and Castor) said that he had a “really good feeling” about the new development at a PCC planning meeting as "well-designed houses" would replace the “moribund” pub

Cllr Christian Hogg (Liberal Democrats, Fletton and Stanground) similarly said that the development has “everything to merit it and nothing to go against it”.

The Elm Tree Tavern was just shy of a century old at the time of its demolition.

According to the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) group, it dates back to 1924, although its most recent name was adopted in the 1990s.

It had previously been known as The Comet Inn.