VILLAGE residents have raised a glass to news that their award-winning pub will not be turned into a house.

The General Elliot in South Hinksey, which closed in 2009, has been at the centre of a protracted battle over its future use.

But plans by pub owner the Vale Brewing Company to turn the building into a house have been rejected by Vale of the White Horse district planners.

Maggie Rawcliffe, the chairman of South Hinksey Parish Council, said: “We are absolutely delighted and we will be preparing for the next round, whether that is to refute any appeal or to cooperate with the Vale Brewery Company.”

Planning permission was refused because the council felt the General Elliot “served not only as a public house, but as an important facility for the local community”.

It also said “no substantive evidence had been submitted to demonstrate that the property is no longer viable as a public house” and “the property has not been offered on the market for sale at a realistic price”.

The Vale Brewery Company had said the pub was “not an important local community facility” and that even if it were the “evidence submitted demonstrates that the use is no longer economically viable”.

Adrian Porter, who has been campaigning to have the pub reopened, said: “This is the culmination of a lot of hard work by a lot of people, but it is only the first step. What we need to do is work with the Vale Brewery Company and get it reopened as a pub.

“This is not a battle against the brewery. There is no bad feeling. We just want our pub back.”

He added: “We have had to work hard for there not to be any damage to our community”.

Mr Porter said while the village might be too small to take control of the pub on its own, local people did have some ideas which they would put to the brewery in due course.

The pub, in Manor Road, was the last one in the village to remain open and had won Oxford CAMRA’s pub of the year award in 2007 and 2008.

Village residents have since been running a successful mock pub scheme within their own homes, with the aim of filling the pub-shaped hole in their community until the General Eliot can re-open.

Vale Brewing Company refused to comment.

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