Dear ‘Dip’ Supporters,
There was a possibly significant development last month.
On 8 October a work group cut down all the trees and foliage in the small piece of land between the Railway Bell garden and the road over the bridge. The guy in charge told enquirers that he was the project manager for a friend from Croydon who was taking out a 20-year lease on the pub. If this comes to fruition and The Dip reopens, our group’s objective will have been achieved. On this basis, and to avoid wasting costs, we suspended our campaign plans, including arranging a survey of the building, and put on hold our application to set up a Community Benefit Society.
But in the month that’s followed, there has been zero activity at the pub and no contact with the prospective tenant. Repeated enquiries to Stonegate, the pub owners, have finally elicited this somewhat unspecific response from their Press Office:
‘We are currently in the process of agreeing a deal with a new publican to take on the premises. We are not in a position to confirm a reopening date but we are working hard to have the pub open in the near future.’
Richmond Council Leader Gareth Roberts also kindly sent an official request to the CEO of Stonegate for clarification and received an identical reply.
Given the lack of activity in the intervening weeks it feels as if negotiations on the prospective lease have stalled (or even broken down?)
To ensure our campaign maintains momentum we propose to proceed on our original track – to complete the Community Benefit Society registration and resubmit our request to Savills for access to the property so that we can undertake a survey of the pub premises.
We’ll keep supporters abreast of any developments.
Meanwhile, we are producing some seasonal promotional material – ‘Save The Dip’ Christmas cards!
Click here for details about the cards
OR
Thank you for your continued support.
Robert Lee and the ‘Save The Dip’ management group