VILLAGERS are coming together to save their closed down local pub and hope to run it as a community venture.

The group in Stonesfield, near Witney, are hoping to buy The White Horse in the village – which is up for sale.

The villagers were spurred into action by the success of drinkers in nearby Bladon, who clubbed together to save The White House after months of fundraising.

The Stonesfield villagers need to raise £385,000 to buy the historic inn.

Simon Warr, 53, who has lived in the village for 10 years, is a committee member for the bid. He said: “The owner put the pub up for sale at the end of July and very quickly we looked into what we could do.

“We’ve triggered a six month process through a disposal notice in which we can put together a bid as a community and a community benefits society has been formed.

“We’ve looked at business plans from community-owned pubs across the country and, in the next few weeks, we’ll be looking to raise the money so we can put in a bid to the owner.

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“The intention is to buy and manage the pub, and we have people in the village who could run it and have that experience.

“We’re working out just how much we’ll need as there’ll be money on top for possible refurbishments.

“The fundraising is set to kick off at the beginning of September, with the deadline at the beginning of January, so effectively we’ve got until then to get a bid together and obviously we hope that the owner will be prepared to do a deal with us.”

In July, The White House in Bladon, the pub where Sir Winston Churchill says he ‘learnt to drink’, officially became owned by the community.

Mr Warr said that would provide inspiration for the Stonesfield community.

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“The situation and especially what happened with Bladon encourages us and we’ve learnt already about the challenges they faced,” he said.

“We feel passionately that the pub is at the heart of the community.

“It’s the last pub in the village when back in the day there was six or seven pubs, but now this is the last one, which is why people are passionate about it and it not being sold off for housing.”

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Mr Warr said that the 10-strong committee was joined by a further 20 people, involved in fundraising efforts and various administrative roles.

In addition to this, he said there are many people willing to buy shares, with a Facebook group boasting over 300 members.

In the group, Mr Warr said ideas are already being shared of how to make the pub a more vibrant part of the community.

“Ideas are flowing in on ways we could improve the pub, things like residency chefs, gin and beer tasting, cookery competitions,” he said.

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“Even things like a takeaway service or a cafe selling very good coffees, pastries and cakes are things that we’ve never really had in the village.

“It’s so exciting when you start seeing these ideas and what people would like to see for the pub.

“It’s just about getting over that hurdle of raising money and it being sold to us.”

For more on the venture, see: backthewhitehorse.com