A landlord says villagers are treating him like the ‘anti-Christ’ after he shut its only pub and announced plans to replace it with luxury homes.
Drew Donaldson who owns the Fox and Hounds pub in Llanharry, south Wales, closed the pub in December due to rising costs and a lack of customers.
But the decision has caused an uproar in the village as locals claim without the community asset and ‘meeting place’ village life will be damaged.
The furious locals have now launched a campaign against the plans which involve putting up ‘save our pub’ posters around the village.
More than 600 villagers out of a population of 3,500 joined an online protest group to block Mr Donaldson’s aim to turn the pub into three houses.
The frustrated landlord said: ‘I can’t even go to the shop now there. I’m like the antichrist of Llanharry.’
He said he was forced to close the pub after the villagers refused to turn up and drink enough. ‘You lose it if you don’t use it’, he said.
‘You have to ask yourself the question: “If there are 600 or more people in a group opposing what I’m trying to do, why were those people not supporting the pub when it was open?”
‘There were some who’d come down. People would come down once a month and have a beer. That’s not enough.
‘My costs were going up this whole time. You can’t just go on losing money.’
‘When you spend 600 quid on a band and you get 16 people and it’s Christmas Eve, you’ve got to ask yourself: “What am I doing here?”
He put the pub on the market – but said no one was interested in taking it over.
Mr Donaldson, who is a builder by trade, has put in a planning application to turn the pub into two separate four-bedroom homes and to build a third four-bedroom home on the land as well.
Shops in the village have letters objecting to Mr Donaldson’s plans on their counters and a cafe has put posters up with the headline: ‘Save our pub.’
Eifion Edwards, who has printed off letters opposing the plans, said: ‘People really care here. We want our pub back.
‘It’s in a great location, has fantastic potential, and it’s an excellent community asset. The reaction from the entire village and the support and momentum we’ve got is extremely important.’
Mike Meredith, who has lived in Llanharry, located near Cardiff, for more than 60 years, claimed: ‘He has been there for years and slowly ran it downhill so it wasn’t a surprise when it closed. It was like a liquified agony.’
‘We know it’s perfectly normal along a high street for two or three pubs to close. That’s the way it’s going. This is different.
‘This is a village and a pub isn’t just a pub. It’s a meeting place and it’s crucial. If you are the local plasterer or plumber you get your business there. That’s how it still works here.’