A community campaign to make The Black Horse, one of Greenford’s much loved pubs listed as an “asset of community value” in order to give it extra protection from being sold off and redeveloped has now been achieved.
The campaign which had help from the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) and involved Ealing North MP James Murray with Central Greenford Councillor Aysha Raza has been notified by Ealing Council that The Black Horse is now listed as an “asset of community value”.
Mr Murray writes of the application put in by the community to Ealing Council. “I was very glad that, in August 2022, the Council confirmed the application had been approved. This was very good news as it meant The Black Horse would now be added to the Council’s list of assets of community values for the next five years. Being an asset of community value does not provide absolute protection for pubs. But it does mean that if Fuller’s tried to sell the Black Horse, we can block them for six months. This would give us time to try to put together a community bid to buy the pub instead.”
In 2021 locals raised concern that pub owner Fuller’s had been looking to sell The Black Horse.
At the time, the pub chain said: “We are surprised to hear about the petition. As a long-standing owner and operator of pubs we only rarely sell sites, our preference is to invest and grow our share from competitors. Inevitably we do review our estate on a regular basis, but if we can see a strong future, particularly around strong local community engagement, we like to invest for the long term.”
Mr Murray now says it will be harder to sell off the pub and site: “Being an asset of community value also helps to keep The Black Horse as a pub whoever owns it. This is because being listed as an asset of community value would make it harder for anyone to get planning permission to change it from a pub into flats.”
For more information on The Black Horse campaign, click here.
