As you might have seen at the Voice of Rough Close, or with your very own eyes, arsonists have been at work in the area. Sometime during the late afternoon of Thursday, 26th May, person or persons unknown set the pub on fire. It was no doubt a very conscientious local resident who raised the alarm and the fire brigade were on the scene quickly enough to extinguish the blaze before it could cause any serious damage.
From what we could see, part of what used to be the restaurant area has been burnt but not a lot else. Certainly none of the building shell has been affected and the fire did not spread to local properties.
No doubt rumours will abound in the days to come as to who set the pub alight and no doubt the owners' names will be mentioned. However, would anyone wishing to cause serious harm commit arson in the middle of the afternoon with local residents out and about? We doubt it.
What we do find depressing is the abuse that this grand old pub has suffered over the past two years all of which has been brought about by property speculators (the owners) trying to make a fast buck. Apart from a few members of the Planning Committee, no one really believes that the owners ever had any intention of running the pub as a going concern.
A sign of the times maybe but what is just as disappointing is that Stafford Borough Council have seemingly ignored the fact that the owners never had sufficient funding to realise the plans approved by the Planning Committee way back in December. This is clearly evident from the advert on the Daniel Hulme website where the owners are trying to sell the pub as a development site or enter into a joint venture.
Whatever happened to caring about the community, about heritage and about the environment? Apart from local residents, is anyone really bothered?
Friday 27 May 2011
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This situation is truly outrageous. Residents in Rough Close are all reaping the adverse conseuquences of that last fatal ominous planning decision. A WRONG decision that was strongly oppposed and totally inappropraite for the small village of Rough Close.
ReplyDeleteWho's interests did the planning committee vote for when they approved the Developers Plans? Ceratinly not Staffordshire and/or Rough Close. All the evidence shows just how wrong they were to have approved that planning application.
A clear lack of common sense and common decency has been demonstrated from the outset of this situation. Indeed what are our elected Councillors going to do about all of this now?
Well stated to both comments! No common sense to apply for planning permission in the first place, when houses aren't even selling in Rough Close and they had a perfectly good pub. Many houses have been up for sale for 5 years plus in Rough Close. More are going on the market too and not selling.The fact that planning was granted by the Council just goes to show how out of touch with reality the Councillors are in this area. Even if they eventually get built they won't sell in Rough Close! In the meantime the owners and Councillors are destroying a perfectly good pub; a very useable village building, which gave history and character to Rough Close. Is anyone, apart from residents bothered? No because they are not in touch with the needs/desires of the area.Unfortunately money and greed has blinded the decision makers here.We only have to look at the state of The George and Dragon to see the tragedy for all concerned.
ReplyDeleteI have been away and only just caught up with this news.Having had a walk up to look at the damage I can only agree with the previous comments made on the greed of the "local" developers,the abject failure of the so called democratic process on this,the highly questionable involvement of at least one of the councillors (Milwich....watch out,he will stitch you up as well) and the sheer pointlessness of SBC`s planning system.How a resounding rejection can be turned around so quickly into an acceptance surely must lead to a significant integrity question on the system and the involved players.
ReplyDeleteWhilst I was having a look at the damage some thug appeared from the rear of the building to question what I was doing.....luckily I was both bigger than him and better at the use of expletives than he seemed to be.
My words used were those that I would like to share with pretty much anyone associated with the useless borough council.
As one of the commentators asks....Just what are the current bunch of elected councillors doing about the problem ? Not much that I have seen.
PS....To the Webmaster.....Is it possible to have a more overt link to this site from the voiceofroughclose ? It doesn`t seem appropriate to put comments there and this is a bit hard to find ?
Thanks to all for your comments. As usual, all highly pertinent. Has anyone approached a Borough Councillor about these points? Now that the elections are out of the way, this might be an opportune time for our newly elected representatives to show their mettle?
ReplyDeleteRe links to the Blog from the Voice of Rough Close, there is a link right in the middle of the home page under the heading "Links". It is also underlined to show that it connects to a different website. If you hover your mouse over the link, your browser will display the name of the site that the link will connect to. There are also links from any relevant news items.
I also put links to the website in the articles on The Blog so that people can easily navigate from one to the other. Hopefully this should suffice but if it doesn't do let me know.
There were police cars and two policemen on the G&D car park again this Saturday tea time. Do we know any details??
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