A community organisation that is trying to buy its local pub is now offering shares in the venue in a bid to raise funds for its reopening. The Miners Arms closed its doors in 2020 and has not reopened, which saw the creation of The Miners Arms Community Association (MACA) to try and achieve a community buy out of the Miners Arms.
Earlier this year a planning application seeking approval to transform Nenthead’s only public house into a private home waswithdrawn as efforts are made to see if it can become a community-run pub.
The next step in the campaign has been to launch a pledge in principle where supporters can make a pledge to buy shares in principle of The Miners Arms.
“A pledge in principle asks how many shares you think you may be willing to buy,” says Simon Walker, chair of MACA. “Each share costs £1 and the minimum amount of shares you can purchase is 100. Although there isn’t a commitment at this stage, being able to show the support for the project is vital to help secure grants from other organisations.
“The support we have had already is tremendous but there is a lot of hard work ahead and I would encourage anyone who feels able to make a pledge.”
An update on Facebook said: “We’ve applied to become a community benefit society and are awaiting registration with the FCA. EDIT we are now registered as the Miners Arms Community Pub Limited. We’ve lodged our expression of interest in bidding for a community ownership grant with the government.”
“We launched our “pledge in principle” request and our fantastic supporters (that’s you lot) pledged over £40k in the first 48 hours but there’s plenty of time and it’s not a final commitment if you want to add your support.”
“We are gathering letters of support from businesses and politicians – if you own or know someone who owns a business please ask them to write a letter of support and send to minerarms.nenthead@gmail.com”
