Community group receives £300k funding to save Aylesbury Vale pub

A community group has confirmed it received major funding to help save its local pub, situated in a village in Aylesbury Vale.

A campaign group, formed last year, has been working to save the closed The Hundred of Ashendon pub. This week, the group has confirmed it received a £300,000 from the Government to help secure the pub’s future.

Residents of Ashendon put together one of 80 successful bids for funding in the latest round of money given out by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Other successful bids came from campaigns to save sports club buildings, community halls, and former music venues.

It has been over a year since the only pub in the village of Ashendon closed. It was also seen as a local for residents in Westcott, Winchendon, Wotton Underwood, Chilton or and Dorton, other villages in Buckinghamshire without open public houses.

The pub has been up for sale since 2022, currently DaveyCo is looking for potential buyers willing to purchase the property on a leasehold agreement, more details can be found online. The company which specialises in agreeing deals for entertainment properties is in discussions with the Ashendon Community Pub Society Limited (ACPS), the community group which is desperate to secure the pub’s future.

A spokesperson for ACPS has confirmed that £250,000 of the funding will go towards the purchase of the freehold, the rest is earmarked for a revenue fund towards working capital. Estimates from the group suggest an additional £250,000 needs to be raised to secure the pub’s future. If the group can generate the cash by the summer it would go towards acquiring, renovating and reopening the countryside pub.

Luke Jamieson, chair of ACPS, said: “We are thrilled with this result and are enormously grateful to those residents in Ashendon and neighbouring villages who have already pledged a total of £168,000 to buy shares. We are still seeking £82,000 in pledges. Now that we have won the trust and majority financial backing of the government to make this initiative a success, we hope that even more members of the community and local businesses will come forward to pledge whatever they can.”

More details can be found online and on Facebook.