Wadsworth Area Community Assets (Waca) – a community benefit society based in Wadsworth, near Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire – has announced its interest in buying the Hare and Hounds Inn and turning it into a community pub.
The pub, in Old Town, was sold by Timothy Taylor’s brewery late last year and has not reopened since. Waca nominated the pub as an Asset of Community Value (ACV) and this was accepted by the local authority in March, kicking off a six-month moratorium where only community groups are allowed to bid and the pub cannot be sold on the general market.
Waca – so far the only community group to register its intent to buy the pub – is considering a community share offer alongside charitable and grant funding.
The Hare and Hounds, known locally as Lane Ends, is famous for its panoramic views of the Calder Valley and the Stoodley Pike monument, making it popular destination among walkers, fell runners, cyclists and horse riders.
If Waca’s campaign is successful, the Hare and Hounds Inn will join Hebden Bridge‘s Fox and Goose and Sowerby Bridge’s Puzzle Hall Inn as community-run free holds in the area.
On its website, Waca said its plans were based on ”a substantial and consistent body of evidence that the community wishes to see this pub saved, reopened, and sustained as a community asset”.
This includes a validated online petition of over 1,265 signatures, two rounds of public consultation meetings attended by more than 260 people, an anonymous questionnaire showing 93.3% support for proceeding with a purchase, over 320 formally verified planning objections to the proposed change of use, and an earlier online survey returning 98.4% support for protecting the pub..
Waca says it has also received written support from local councillors, Wadsworth Parish Council, the majority of local community groups, the Campaign for Real Ale, neighbouring local pubs — both privately and community-owned — as well as local businesses.
It added: “We are grateful to every member of this community who has made their voice heard — through petitions, surveys, planning objections, public meetings, and messages of support. The mandate we carry into this next stage belongs to you. We will pursue it with care, transparency, and determination.”
