Old Engine runs out of steam
The Old Engine in Orrell
ANOTHER Wigan pub looks to have finally pulled its last pint.
Planners confirmed today that they are formally considering a scheme to transform the Old Engine in Orrell - once home to a crack darts team of the same name - into a housing development.
The once-popular community pub is the latest victim of a toll which, according to real ale guardian’s Camra, is now nationally claiming six pubs a day.
Hawkley Hall-based developer Reza Azimy has formally applied to Wigan Council to turn the pub itself into two apartments and to build two pairs of semi-detached homes in the former extensive beer gardens area.
A neighbour consultation has just closed and the bid is now expected to come before councillors for consideration in August.
The Gathurst Road pub, named after a former mine pumping engine which once stood on the same spot, hit the headlines after former owners pub company Punch Taverns demonstrated the desperate state of the licensed trade by offering it to rent at a bargain £100 per week.
But even that eye-catching offer has proved unable to save the pub, with nobody willing to take up the offer. At the time a spokesman for the Burton-based company admitted: “Along with other businesses in the retail sector, pubs are operating in a challenging economic environment.
“We continue to support our licencees as much as possible, hence the offer of a very competitive opening rent at the Old Engine.”
Wigan Camra chairman Ken Worthington said today that the closure was a sign of the times.
He added: “We hear from lots of pub managers or landlords these days who say they are being forced to close and one of the reasons is high rents.
“If the pub is owned by a pub company, the landlord is usually tied to paying the rent set by the company as well as being tied in to buying the beer at a set price.
“A lot of landlords say their rent and beer prices are set too high.
Camra want to see pub companies allow landlords to put on guest beers which can be sourced “locally for a good price.”
Long-established gunsmiths T and J McAvoy of High Street, Standish, have declined to confirm or deny they have put in an offer for the still-trading Dog and Partridge in School Lane to transform it into a sporting gun shop with living accommodation above
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Weather for Wigan
Saturday 04 February 2012
Today
Light snow
Temperature: -1 C to 2 C
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Wind direction: South
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