Owning your own home

The consultation process happens during the determination period, 8 weeks is the statutory period for a householder application to be determined from submission of the application.

Supposedly getting the contracts to sign early next week. Allegedly. Maybe.

Probably won't.

Strange, I never had this problem as a first time buyer with a deck access property in a block of twenty over two floors.

The only thing I was warned against was any block over five floors as something I was unlikely to be able to borrow for.

My old local's under threat:

https://www.change.org/p/waltham-forest-council-we-believe-that-waltham-forest-council-should-help-save-the-heathcote-in-leytonstone-by-issuing-an-article-4-direction-on-the-pub?recruiter=160522609&utm_campaign=mailto_link&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition

Recently sold to new owners, it is now believed that there are plans to demolish The Heathcote public house and turn it into flats. Unbelievably under the current law there is very little we can do about it.

However, Waltham Forest Council can help stop The Heathcote being demolished, turned into a supermarket or betting shop by using an Article 4 Direction now. This can ensure that only elected Councillors can decide on any change to the use of the building.

https://www.change.org/p/waltham-forest-council-we-believe-that-waltham-forest-council-should-help-save-the-heathcote-in-leytonstone-by-issuing-an-article-4-direction-on-the-pub?recruiter=160522609&utm_campaign=mailto_link&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition

Please sign if you can be arsed. Little pockets of land all over Leytonstone have been bought and exploited by developers putting up rabbit hutches at stupid prices, too many pubs are being lost.

signed.

I literally already want to rip my hair out.

There's lots of this stuff mentioned in CAMRA magazine. In the 1850s Oxford St used to have something like 38 pubs on it. Now just the one. Can you imagine Oxford Street with that many pubs on it? :)

Maybe not for long:

Posted on 5:06 pm, Wednesday, 1 October 2014 by Reporter in Business, Environment
The last remaining boozer on Oxford Street could close its doors as a public house after Westminster Council decided last month to permit a change of use.

http://news.fitzrovia.org.uk/2014/10/01/is-last-pub-on-oxford-street-to-close/

Yeah, that was what they were talking about. There aren't any plans to close it yet but there's some weirdness going on with planning permission or something. They're organising some kind of fight I think.

This pub is literally at the end of my road, ie. two minutes walk.

It would be very sad to see it go. My old landlord destroyed a listed pub years ago (binning its original fittings from the 1800's) when converting to flats. Fuck all happened about that, and there's no turning back.

Hope to Hell that someone can continue to run this pub, and take a bit of inspiration from other successful pubs nearby (ie. good beer, and good food by sticking to a limited menu). They could down-size the pub and go half way, if it's possible to make the rest residential, assuming noise isn't a problem.

Something weird happened in the Heathcote, I wasn't there, but I heard about it. A poker club used to meet once a week for a few hands, a chat and a few drinks. One night last year they turned up and the manager told them they were barred. For drug dealing. These were just ordinary bods, they had nothing to do with dealing drugs. How the flipping heck do you deal drugs while playing poker? The poker players were furious but couldn't do much so they just bitched and moaned and went elsewhere, so it made me wonder if you owned a large Victorian corner pub with a massive garden and a property developer started running their hand up your leg you begin to realise you could make an awful lot of money so you start getting silly with the ban hammer and run the trade down to give the impression the pub's not profitable. Who knows?

We have the mortgage surveyor coming around today.

Heathcote has got "asset of community value" status now.

give the impression the pub's not profitable.

Since when were pubs profitable, other than for the hedge funds, that own the retail groups, that own the freehold?

Not everyone swills their shandies in Wetherspoons you know?

It could be, The Red Lion on the high road was a stinking boozer with fights, people dealing drugs without a poker-game front and customers urinating in front gardens, Antic took over and it's going great guns.

Heathcote. Owned by Stonegate. Owned by TDR Capital.

Still - it has ACV status. I'm sure the community will easily outbid whatever property developer the place is being sold to.

I'd heard of this poker story. But I never put two and two together.

My Dad looked at the pub which was empty on a Friday evening, and had pubco-type signs for horrible drinks outside at fairly expensive prices. His immediate impression (without knowing the history as he is from Edinburgh) was that they were probably deliberately running it down in order to convert to flats. My girlfriend also said exactly the same, and says she sees this happening often in London (she's an architect). FFS.

The Red Lion is pretty much a benchmark in how to run a decent pub in the area. They must make a fucking killing.

We're battling a similar problem in Hither Green at the moment. The sales office for the development i live in was given permission, at the time of the build, to be turned into small offices and cafe / restaurant after the sales office closed.

The property agents have had it "on the market" for nearly two years at rents twice those of other similar commercial properties in the area. They're also not returning calls from genuine interest (a local child care business for example).

Now, stating the it's not financially viable at the current classification, they're magically reapplying permission to turn it into a tesco metro.

It amazes me that the council can do nothing to stop this. As long as the planning company abide by simple rules, it just goes through without challenge.

i worked on the conversion of the pub on the corner of hither green lane and thornhill, many moons ago.

the spotted cow?

No idea. I live the other side of the tracks so don't head that way that often. Not sure there's a Thornhill road though? Do you mean Torridon Road?

thornford road.

This one?

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.4540376,-0.0084795,3a,75y,283.68h,85.57t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1szSAM6MCBV7cyVL3mJ0frsQ!2e0

or this one:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.4539952,-0.0084442,3a,75y,196.93h,92.98t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sg_GuVuuZjRq254FNj83z7Q!2e0

The first one is a pretty nice job.