A plan to turn a York pub into a café has been refused by planners.
Campaigners have express their delight that the Victoria Vaults has been saved – and say they are certain it can reopen as both a pub and music venue.
Plans from The Vaults (York) Ltd, submitted last year, sought to turn the ground floor of the building, in Nunnery Lane, into a café with an outdoor seating area.
Now the café plan has been rejected. City of York Council planners said the pub was “considered to be a community venue as a pub, a cultural venue for its live music and having direct and indirect employment”.
The new owners had said it was not viable to reopen as a pub.
Council planners said: “To fully demonstrate that the building is no longer viable and to demonstrate exceptional circumstances to permit the change, a further five months of marketing is required at a fair and realistic price in accordance with policy requirements of a minimum of 24 months of marketing.
“To date, only 20 months of marketing have taken place. This must be of the full building at a rental rate of circa £25,000 or for sale between £360,000 – £390,000.”
The pub dates back to at least 1857, when it was just known as The Victoria. According to the Clements Hall Local History Group, it was sold in 1884, complete with a brewhouse, to a local wine and spirit merchant, before being rebuilt in the 1920s or 1930s.
The York branch of Camra (the Campaign for Real Ale) was thrilled by the news.
Nick Love, pub protection officer at York Camra, told YorkMix: “We’re delighted that the planning application has been refused.
“It is really pleasing to see the new Local Plan with its wording protecting York’s pubs and cultural facilities being a powerful tool to scrutinise and refuse applications such as this.
“We welcome the ruling that the whole of the building must be offered for rent and not just a lock up ground floor pub.
“We were made aware by several interested parties that viewings were being discouraged by the owners as they wanted to convert the upstairs into separate rental accommodation which would suffer noise from music below.
“This is unacceptable – the whole of the building, including live-in accommodation for any licensee, is a viable proposition and we have confidence that on that basis there will now interest from credible operators.”
Victoria Vaults was removed as an ‘asset of community value’ (ACV) by the council in November.
An application from the same developer to convert the building into three homes remains live on the council’s online planning portal.
Now York Camra is asking for it to be given ACV status. This is awarded to that are of value to the local community and gives the local community the chance to buy it.
The Vaults has been a popular music venue for some time.
Nick said: “Its loss has left only two genuine music venues in York now, which are the Fulford Arms and the Crescent , and the Victoria Vaults filled a perfect gap between the two with regards to its capacity and who has the opportunity to play there – both up and coming bands, as well as some well-known bands.
“So it’s about the weight of public opinion, and the local community wanting it back being used as a community venue rather than just another three or four flats making money for property operators from outside of the city.”
Northern Powergrid has told YorkMix Radio that it expects a busy junction in York to remain closed for most of the week.
The junction of Holgate Road and Blossom Street was shut on Friday after it was discovered that they needed to repair the electricity supply on the corner.
They have had to dig up part of the carriageway and the road is closed to vehicles as a result.
Cyclists and people on foot can get past though. The businesses are also open as usual as is access to property along the route.
Northern Powergrid says they expect work to be finished by Friday 29th May.
Until then diversions are in place from Holgate Bridge via Dalton Terrace and the Mount but this route has been very congested at peak periods.
