Park Cakes bought former pub in 2024 and now wants to clear ‘visual blight’
The former pub has been boarded up and vacant for more than a year (Image: Google Maps)
The bakery responsible for creating the much-loved Colin the Caterpillar cake for M&S is expanding. Park Cakes has permission to bulldoze a former pub right outside its bakery in Oldham to extend its grounds.
The Honeywell Arms at 491 Ashton Road has stood boarded-up since September 2024 and was bought-up by the bakery shortly after. Once a long-standing Robinsons Brewery pub, it struggled to remain open in the challenging conditions for the hospitality industry and a violent attack on the pub landlord in 2023.
Oldham Council has approved the demolition of the two-storey building, which includes a private flat for the pub landlords on the first floor. Town planners said the boozer had suffered ‘long-term decline’ with no visible investment in improving its facade since 2008. They also noted there were alternative pubs available within 1km (0.6 miles).
In a planning report, council officer Dave Richards said: “The demolition does not amount to the unnecessary loss of a valued community facility … and would remove a degraded, visually harmful structure from a prominent location. With appropriate conditions, the proposal would secure a safer, tidier and more coherent interim site appearance.”
Park Cakes bakery hasn’t yet revealed what it plans to do with the land. But in the short-term, they told town planners they wanted to ‘modernise the frontage of the Park Cakes Sites, by improving traffic management and access safety and removing a visual blight at a major junction’.
The bakery has not confirmed when the works are due to happen. The demolition will take place over the course of two-weeks. Work hours are restricted to between 8am and 6pm on weekdays and 9am to 1pm on Saturdays, to minimize impact on the surrounding residential areas.
The demolition will mark the end of an era for the pub building, which was last managed by Jack Dodd and his partner. Dodd ran the pub for 26 years before it was formally dissolved in August 2025.
In 2023, his partner was left needing 15 stitches after the couple tried to defend the pub from burglars. At the time, the pair told local press that the attack had made them want to move out of the area.
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