A HEADINGTON pub that was listed as a community asset is back on the market.

Oxford City Council designated the Fairview Inn as a community asset on July 16 after residents launched a campaign to save the pub.

The residents then had six weeks to submit a notification that they wished to become a preferred bidder.

But this did not happen and so the pub is now available to buy on the open market again after residents were unable to stump up the £385,000 needed to purchase it.

Manager Glyn Millard, 62, hoped the Fairview Inn would continue to serve as a pub.

He said: “I really hope it stays open as a pub. I am trying really hard to keep it going so that if people come and view it they will see it working as a pub.

“I am sticking at it as long as I can in the hope that someone will take a chance on it.”

Mr Millard, who has managed the pub for 29 years, said: “I have spent almost half my life building up the trade. I know that my days are numbered but I am trying to keep my head above water.

“If someone new came in and took it over they could make it into a gold mine.”

The Fairview Inn is currently owned by Enterprise Inns and was put on the market earlier this year after more than half a century as a local pub.

Before the pub was listed as a community asset, it had been provisionally sold to an unnamed buyer.

Property company Fleurets now hopes a deal could made for the pub.

Fleurets, a property company which specialises in pubs and restaurants, describes the Fairview Inn as being in a “prominent” corner location with “alternative use potential”.

Divisional director Chris Irving said: “It’s only just gone back on the market, but there’s interest in the pub and viewings will take place this week.

“I am hopeful we will be able to sell it.”

The Fairview Inn was built by Reading-based brewers H & G Simonds and opened in September 1959.

Despite its fairly young age, the Campaign for Real Ale considers the pub to be a historically important one.

It is listed on the Campaign for Real Ale’s national inventory of historic pub interiors as having “wonderful” full-height wall panelling.

If the pub were to be sold for another use, it would be far from the first pub in the county to have been lost in recent years.

Watering holes that have gone include the Fox and Hounds in Abingdon Road, the Chester Arms in Iffley Fields and the George Inn in Botley Road.

Enterprise Inns was last night unavailable for comment.