Developers have second go with plan to turn The Old Fox near Watford into a house

Developers who want to turn a remote pub into a house have submitted a planning application – just months after a council blocked their previous effort. The Old Fox near Garston closed in 2017 and has been shut ever since, according to documents handed to St Albans City and District Council.

The authority rejected a bid to turn the tucked-away boozer into a five-bedroom house in May 2023. But developers have come forward with a re-submission which they hope will “address and remediate” some of the council’s concerns.

Summarising its decision in May, a St Albans City and District Council^[1] officer wrote the plan goes against the St Stephen Parish Neighbourhood Plan policy “Protection of Public Houses”. The policy “seeks to safeguard the remaining drinking establishments^[2], unless it can be shown that they are commercially unviable”.

Owners must test whether the pub is unviable by putting it on the market for a minimum 12 months “at a reasonable market value that is comparable to the market values for drinking establishment floor space in that general locality”. National rules also require developers to “plan positively” for shared spaces, such as pubs.

St Albans City and District Council has its own rules which require its officers to be satisfied there is no longer a need for a pub before granting permission for a change of use. Heritage consultants have said The Old Fox pub, which is in School Lane, is not a financially sustainable venture and “therefore a new purpose needs to be found to ensure continuing building use and investment”.

They said the M1, which arrived in 1959, split up the area and became a boundary between Garston in Watford and Bricket Wood in the St Albans district. The heritage report notes the London to Yorkshire motorway contributed to a decline in passing trade at the “remote location”. It adds The Old Fox, which has previously been known as The Young Fox, used to compete with a different pub called The Fox on the same road until 1917.

In the fresh application, submitted in October 2023, developers have urged St Albans City and District Council to look at a series of national rules which could allow them to press ahead with their plans. The National Planning Policy Framework requires developers and district planners to “[make] effective use of land” and “[meet] the need for homes”.

Developers have also suggested the council wrongly interpreted the St Stephen parish policy, which covers the period 2019 until 2036. “The policy clearly states that ‘Bricket Wood had four public houses and now only has two: The Black Boy and The Gate’,” the developers’ statement reads. “It is evident that due to the time elapsed that The Old Fox has been vacant, it is no longer classified as a public house.”

The statement notes that when the owner put the property on the market between 2020 and 2021, agents held 27 viewings. There were 18 potential buyers “interested in the property but [they] did not progress due to ambiguity surrounding the use class”.

If the use class were “regularised through the appropriate channels as a residential use, the property could be sold to a homeowner”. A consultation on the application will run until Saturday, November 25.

References

1. ^{^} St Albans City and District Council (www.hertfordshiremercury.co.uk)
2. ^{^} drinking establishments (www.hertfordshiremercury.co.uk)
3. ^{^} Hertfordshire council slashes new homes target for Chiltern towns but plans 11,742 homes in Hemel Hempstead (www.hertfordshiremercury.co.uk)
4. ^{^} On-demand buses for Hemel and Tring could be stored at Hertfordshire’s biggest tip (www.hertfordshiremercury.co.uk)