PEOPLE from across the world are rallying to save a village pub.
The Fox at Loxley was put up for sale earlier this year by owners Ei Group – formerly Enterprise Inns – with an asking price of £345,000.
But villagers were determined to keep their local open and started the Fox at Loxley Action Group in a bid to save it.
The pub is currently open on a temporary basis but villagers are fighting hard to make that permanent. They are calling for people to ‘pledge’ to buy shares, and are also looking into grants available to form a company to buy The Fox.
So far around £165,000 has been pledged – and not just from Loxley residents.
Campaign group spokesman Paul Jennings said: “We have pledges from 80 people, which is fantastic, but we have still a lot more to do.
“Many of these pledges are from Loxley but we are now getting pledges from people from the surrounding villages as well as further afield with pledges coming in from Ireland and even from a Mexican living in Germany.
“The primary objective is to run The Fox Inn for the benefit of the community.”
The team want the pub to be run on a similar model to the The New Inn in Norton Lindsey – which re-opened in 2017 following a campaign by villagers and which is now run by the community.
Paul added: “We remain positive and focused on getting more pledges so we can win our battle to keep a pub in Loxley and to make this pub a community pub, run by the community for the benefit of our community and this includes all the villages around Loxley.
“If we fail and the pub closes I am sure we will hear in years to come people saying that they did not know there was a team trying to save the Fox, and that if they had known they would have pledged to buy some shares. We can all avoid this by speaking to our neighbours and making sure everyone knows what we are trying to achieve in buying the Fox and turning it into a community pub.”
Email [email protected] or call 07831 153260 to find out more.
