A group has come together in an attempt to buy the property, with one member saying that “it feels like now or never”
A campaign group in a Cambridgeshire village hopes to buy a former pub and Indian restaurant. Save The Hoops – a group of residents in Little and Great Eversden – has come together to “protect the future” of The Hoops.
The award-winning restaurant, Cam Spice, formerly known as The Hoops Tandoori, in Great Eversden, closed its doors last year. The property has since been listed on Rightmove for sale as an Asset of Community Value (ACV).
The community has until the middle of April to submit a bid to the owner. An ACV protects local assets from being sold or redeveloped without the community having a chance to bid.
Paul Trivett, a member of Save The Hoops, has lived in Great Eversden for around seven years. He said: “We don’t have a shop, we don’t have a post office, we don’t have anything that’s open on a regular basis.
”So, this seems to be our last opportunity to have such a thing,” he said. “Once lost, a pub is almost irreparable to replace, with a permanent impact on village life.”
Save The Hoops has launched a website asking people to put pledges in for when the community share offer opens. This is to help strengthen their bid and unlock grant funding, as the group aims to raise £700,000. Around 20 people have come together to raise the funds, including marketing professionals, gardeners, builders, surveyors, and roofing contractors.
Abigail Newnham is a parish councillor for Little and Great Eversden, and a member of the Save The Hoops group. She said: “It feels like now or never. So we either sit back as a village and show no interest in this, or we see what is possible.”
She added: “It is about making sure we don’t lose this community asset, however it might operate in the future, whether that is a pub, a restaurant, a café or shop.”
Another member of the group, Alan Woods, has lived in Great Eversden for 45 years. He said that protecting the pub is important to him because it is “the main centre of the village”. He added: “I have lived here 45 years and there’s more things that go on at the pub than anywhere else.”
The group aims for the community to purchase the property and lease it to a hospitality operator. This would keep it as a community asset without expecting the community to work shifts.