Futures Forum: Save The Red Lion Campaign: launch of ‘Sidbury Community Enterprises Limited’ share offer
Futures Forum: Save The Red Lion Campaign: meeting Tues 24th Sept
Futures Forum: Red Lion Sidbury: now an Asset of Community Value
... a vital stage has now been reached.
Support it if you can - by buying shares in the Enterprise:
Saturday, 22 March 2014
Red Lion Purchase - Sale Agreed
Agreement reached for Sidbury Community Enterprises to buy Red Lion pub, Sidbury
Sidbury Community Enterprises is excited to announce that the Red Lion pub in Sidbury looks set to become the first pub in East Devon which having been listed as an Asset of Community Value becomes a community owned pub. The pub’s owner, Punch Taverns, placed it up for sale in April 2013 and in response to a local campaign to retain the pub its owner has now agreed to sell it to Sidbury Community Enterprises.
Once purchased the Red Lion will be owned by Sidbury Community Enterprises which is a community benefit Industrial Provident Society limited company which is run as a co-operative enterprise.
Sidbury Community Enterprises wants to ensure that the Red Lion becomes a good quality village pub that attracts and retains regular customers. The creation of a Red Lion business has its roots in its local community. The pub will be offered for maximum community use, small or large, formal or informal occasions. Sidbury Community Enterprises intends to support community projects and organisations, as well as providing non-core services to the community.
Sidbury Community Enterprises wants to create opportunities for families, youth and older residents to all see the Red Lion as a social space that they can all share beyond using it for the traditional pub offerings. We will work with community organisations to develop these opportunities. Sidbury Community Enterprises sees the opportunity for our wider community to use the space that the pub has to offer, particularly at times when it is underused.
The next steps in purchasing the Red Lion will be raising the funds need not only to buy it, but also in providing the start up costs for the new Red Lion business, as well funding the refurbishment works required to bring the pub up to acceptable trading standards.
Sidbury Community Enterprises will therefore be launching its community share offer in the next few weeks. Anyone interested in supporting this community initiative will be able to invest up to £20,000 in buying shares at £50 each. Details of this share offer will be
published in April.
In welcoming this exciting milestone in the creation of East Devon’s first community owned pub Chair of Sidbury Community Enterprises, Fred Burnett said “From the very start of our campaign to retain the Red Lion for our local community, under the banner of Save The Red Lion Campaign, a great deal of hard work has gone into being sure that we can make the Red Lion a profitable enterprise.”
Fred Burnett continued “We have a solid business plan and this has allowed us to determine what we think the Red Lion is worth and what we can afford to pay for it. We are very pleased to have agreed a purchase price that is below what the owner has been asking for it. We need the community in Sidbury, and the wider Sid Valley, to now open their wallets and purses in order to raise the funds we need to establish a new Red Lion business.”
“We really need everyone to buy as many shares as they can in the new Red Lion business because if we cannot raise all the money needed in the next couple of months then we will not be able to purchase the pub. In those circumstances this community focused venture will not happen. We need local people to help us give the Red Lion back its roar.”
A share offer prospectus will be published next month and anyone who is interested in knowing about the share offer or what Sidbury Community Enterprises plans are for a new Red Lion business will be able to come along to two open days that are planned to be held in Sidbury village hall on Friday 25 April and Saturday 3 May. Please put these dates in your calendar now!
Details of the new Red Lion business share offer will be published next month and anyone who wants details of it, or Sidbury Community Enterprises’ recently published vision for revitalising the pub, should contact thepubinthevillage@gmail.com or visit the blog at http://thepubinthevillage.blogspot.com.
Thank you for all of your support to date. Please support our ambitious share offer that will be announced in the next few weeks.
http://www.claire-wright.org/index.php/post/punch_taverns_agree_to_sell_red_lion_pub_to_sidbury_campaigner
Sidbury pub sale could bring back Red Lion’s roar
By Exeter Express and Echo | Posted: March 25, 2014
Regulars have struck a deal to buy their local from pub giant Punch Taverns in the latest community-sponsored takeover plan.
Campaigners in Sidbury have clubbed together to save the Red Lion, the last remaining pub in the village, after the brewing company placed it on the open market last year. Locals secured much-needed time to put together a buyout plan by getting the business listed as an asset of community value, a scheme which blocks any sale for six months to allow residents a chance to take over culturally important buildings when they are threatened.
The pub company has accepted an offer for the Red Lion, which is less than two miles from Regency Sidmouth, making it the first community-run ale house in East Devon.
Fred Burnett, chairman of Sidbury Community Enterprises, said a figure below the asking price had been agreed but more work was now needed to get the business up and running. “We have a solid business plan and this has allowed us to determine what we think the Red Lion is worth and what we can afford to pay for it,” he added. “We are very pleased to have agreed a purchase price that is below what the owner has been asking for it. We need the community in Sidbury, and the wider Sid Valley, to now open their wallets and purses in order to raise the funds we need to establish a new Red Lion business.”
Punch Taverns put the pub up for sale in April 2013 and have now (Monday) agreed to sell it to Sidbury Community Enterprises, which is run as a co-operative enterprise. In a bid to raise the asking price and start-up costs, such as refurbishment works, the group will next month be launching its community share offer in the next few weeks, allowing investors to plough in up to £20,000, divided into £50 shares.
Company Secretary John Loudoun said: “We really need everyone to buy as many shares as they can in the new Red Lion business because if we cannot raise all the money needed in the next couple of months then we will not be able to purchase the pub. We really need local people to help us give the Red Lion back its roar.”
Sidbury pub sale could bring back Red Lion’s roar | Exeter Express and Echo
Pub sale could bring back the Red Lion's roar | Western Morning News
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