Reopening a pub that has been closed for two years

Reopening a closed pub planning position is usually better than people expect. A public house is sui generis, outside any use class, so resuming the pub use is not development and needs no planning permission, provided the lawful use has not been abandoned. Two years of closure on its own does not abandon a use. What causes trouble is the combination of a long closure, a deteriorating building and an owner who has been marketing it for housing, because that is the evidence an authority would weigh if abandonment were ever argued.

So the first job is not an application. It is an evidence file.

Whether the lawful use survived the closure

Public houses were moved out of the use classes and into sui generis, which means any change of use away from a pub needs planning permission, and permitted development rights do not provide a route out. That cuts both ways and in your favour: if the lawful use is still a public house, you are simply resuming it.

Resumption of a lawful use that has merely stopped is not a material change of use. There is no fee, no application and no determination period. The practical risk is a complaint, an enforcement enquiry and an argument conducted after you have spent money on the fit-out.

The way to remove that risk before spending is a certificate of lawfulness of existing use or development under section 191 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, or a certificate of proposed use under section 192 if you want the position confirmed before you commit. A Lawful Development Certificate is the only formal way to confirm that a use is lawful, and on a building that has stood empty it is the least costly insurance available.

Abandonment and the four factors a decision turns on

Abandonment is a question of fact and degree, and the courts have settled on four factors.

The physical condition of the building. A pub with a sound roof, working services and the bar still in place has not stopped being a pub. One stripped to a shell with the fittings sold and the windows boarded for years is a different case.

The length of the period of non-use. Two years is short in this context. Ten years with no activity is not.

Whether there has been any intervening use. A pub used as a storage depot, or with the living accommodation let separately as a dwelling, has an intervening use that complicates the picture considerably.

The evidence of the owner's intention. Marketing as a pub, maintenance, a retained premises licence, an insurance policy on a licensed premises basis and correspondence about reopening all point one way. Marketing exclusively for residential conversion points the other.

Build the file from documents rather than recollection: dated photographs inside and out, rate demands and their basis, insurance schedules, the licensing record, utility accounts, maintenance invoices, and any agent's particulars. Where the previous owner holds the useful material, ask for it as a condition of the purchase.

Asset of community value listing and what it changes

Listing under the Localism Act 2011 puts the building on the local authority's register of assets of community value and triggers a moratorium when the owner wants to sell. A community interest group can trigger a period in which it may prepare a bid, and the owner cannot dispose of the asset during that period.

Two things it does not do. It does not give the community a right to buy at a set price, and it does not prevent a sale to someone else once the moratorium expires. What it does, for planning purposes, is make the building's community value a documented material consideration in any application to change its use or demolish it.

For someone reopening the pub, a listing is useful in three ways. It evidences community support in a form the authority has already accepted. It slows a competing sale for conversion. And it gives the parish or town council a documented position to repeat in consultation responses.

Applying for listing is done by a qualifying community body, so a commercial operator cannot do it directly, but encouraging a local group to do so is a legitimate and common step.

Alterations needed to trade and which need consent

Resuming the use is one thing. Making the building usable is another, and this is where applications become necessary.

Where the building is listed, assume internal works need consent and take advice before touching the bar, the panelling or the fireplaces. Historic fittings in a pub interior are frequently the reason for the listing.

The kitchen extraction route is the one that most often causes a refusal. A Ventilation and Extraction Statement setting out the system, the discharge height, the filtration and the odour control is what environmental health will read, and getting the flue route agreed before the kitchen is designed saves rebuilding it.

Parking, hours and the noise objections that follow

Here is the situation that catches new operators. The pub closed. Houses or flats were built nearby, or the flat above was let separately, and the new occupiers moved in next to a building that was not trading. Now it reopens and the complaints start.

National policy contains the agent of change principle: where a new development is brought forward near an existing business, the applicant for the new development is responsible for providing suitable mitigation, and existing businesses should not have unreasonable restrictions placed on them as a result of development permitted after they were established. The principle is on your side if the housing came after the pub, which it almost always did. How that works in practice, including where the flats sit directly above the trading area, is covered in the note on flats above a working pub.

But the principle protects an established pattern of operation, not an expanded one. If you want longer hours, live music, a larger beer garden or a new smoking shelter, those are new proposals judged on their own merits, and the complaints then have somewhere to land.

Practical measures that tend to resolve objections before they harden: a written dispersal and management plan with a named contact, limits on amplified music in external areas, closing the garden earlier than the building, moving deliveries out of early morning, and a plant noise assessment where cellar cooling or extraction sits near a bedroom window. Where the authority asks for acoustic evidence, a Noise Impact Assessment to the relevant standard is the document, and councils expect a suitably qualified author with professional review strongly advised. Patron noise is not assessed by the industrial and commercial sound standard, so expect that element to be handled by management measures rather than by numbers.

Parking is usually about the car park rather than the street. Where the car park was partly sold or let, the reduced provision is a material change the highway authority will comment on, even though resuming the use needs no permission.

Residential conversion as the competing proposal

Most closed pubs are closed because someone wants to convert them. Since the permitted development route was removed, that conversion needs planning permission, and local plan policies on the loss of community facilities apply.

Those policies typically require the applicant to show that the use is no longer viable and that the premises have been properly marketed for a sustained period at a realistic price for the existing use. The period is set locally and twelve months is common. The marketing evidence has to be for the pub use, not for the site's development value, and a pub marketed at a price reflecting residential conversion value has not been marketed as a pub.

If you are the party wanting to reopen, your strongest intervention is to make an offer in response to that marketing, in writing, at or near the asking price for the existing use. An unanswered offer undermines the viability case completely and it is on the file for the authority to read.

Evidence of marketing and viability

Both sides use the same material and read it differently. What a well evidenced file contains:

1. The marketing particulars, with dates, the asking price and the basis of valuation.
2. Where and for how long it was advertised, including the specialist licensed property channels rather than general residential portals.
3. A record of enquiries and offers, with the reason each was rejected.
4. Trading accounts for the last period of operation, with an explanation of the circumstances.
5. A business plan for the proposed reopening, with realistic turnover assumptions and a staffing model.
6. Evidence of community support and of the catchment, including any community share offer.

Point four needs care. A pub that failed under a tied lease at a high rent is not evidence that the site cannot support a pub, and that distinction is worth making explicitly in a Planning Statement if there is a competing conversion application running.

Building the case for reopening

Where no permission is needed, the work is procedural rather than persuasive. Get the certificate. Get the premises licence position confirmed, because a licence can lapse and a new application runs on the Licensing Act timetable with its own notices and representation period. Settle the extraction and signage consents before fit-out. Speak to the environmental health officer before you open rather than after the first complaint.

Where permission is needed for alterations, keep the application narrow. An application for a flue and a sign is determined on the flue and the sign. An application that also seeks extended hours and a marquee invites a wider argument.

One honest uncertainty. Whether a particular closure amounts to abandonment is a judgement no adviser can guarantee, which is exactly why the certificate route exists.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. To see which documents the alterations are likely to need, enter the postcode on PlanScope.

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