Whose fault is the demise of the Crooked House in Himley, Staffordshire, now a pile of bricks? The nation is up in arms. MPs, peers, mayors, editors, villagers and about 18,000 people on a Facebook group are all gnashing their teeth. Even the demolition contractor, whose digger was actually booked before the pub caught fire, is embarrassed. Many of these worthies may not have known of the pub before. They sure do now, and they all want it put back, brick by crooked brick.
There is a tried and tested procedure for securing a building that is of “architectural and historic interest”. It is called protective listing. An 18th-century pub would surely have qualified. Historic England, which wants the Crooked House restored, said it received a request to list the building a few days before the fire. But such a renowned building should have been listed a long time ago. This is perhaps more evidence for the inadequacy of the current system in England – witness the ongoing row over saving the unlisted M&S store on Oxford Street in London.
The people of Himley had failed to register their pub under a local plan as “an asset of community value”. It is now reported that the pub’s owner recently “gutted” the interior of another Midlands pub, the Sarah Mansfield at Willey, which actually was put forward for such asset status. But this listing was overruled on appeal, which shows how local planning is still at the mercy of centralists. The idea that a civil servant studying an appeal can better judge the value of a pub than can local people must be absurd – after all, it merely requires a developer to cry “more housing” and Whitehall capitulates.
Pubs are desperately threatened. Six years ago an attempt was made to correct the disastrous error of the Cameron government in easing change of use to allow pubs to be redeveloped at will. After a furious outburst, in 2017 that freedom was withdrawn. But about 7,000 pubs in England and Wales closed in the past decade. More than 150 were demolished or converted in the first quarter of this year alone, a rate 60% higher than last year. Change of use is allowed in the event of the pub being unprofitable for a set period of time – a test vastly eased by its destruction. In the case of the Crooked House, the police are inspecting suspected arson and have made no arrests.
What matters is whether the fate of the Crooked House will serve as a warning or an encouragement to others. The restoration of what was a place of unique curiosity and delight to its village is perfectly possible, preferably at the expense of its demolishers. Rebuilding a “wonky” pub will require ingenuity, but it is no different in principle from the hundreds of effectively rebuilt Tudor pubs across the country. Disneyesque, perhaps, but what’s wrong with that?
Another response should be more serious. It is that local democracy needs perpetually to be on its guard. It needs to flex every muscle, however puny, granted by the law and demand its rigorous enforcement. An example must be shown to the howling cacophony of developer lobbyists now charging across the English landscape, deriding democracy as nimbyism.
Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
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