Campaigners have written to Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner urging her to back calls for a change in the planning laws to protect pubs.
Under the current system, property developers can close and redevelop pubs by classifying them as restaurants.
The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) argues the Government should define a pub in planning law so that councils will then have the power to reject ‘change of use’ applications.
‘Our volunteers know that a simple way that English planning laws could be changed to help with the fight against developers and global brewers – who have little interest in keeping pubs open for community benefit – would be to define a pub in planning law,’ wrote CAMRA chairperson Ash Corbett-Collins.
‘This would help councils reject planning applications where developers and property-owning businesses attempt to exploit loopholes in our planning system to claim that pubs are restaurants to get permission for change of use.’
