VILLAGERS have taken a major step forward to save their ‘local’ after a property developer agreed to let them buy it.

The Save the Great Bromley Cross Inn group have been told they can buy the pub for £190,000 by East Anglia businessman John Howard, who also lives in the village, near Manningtree.

The pub, on the corner of Colchester Road and Frating Road, had been registered as an asset of community value, giving campaigners a chance to put in an offer if it went on the market.

Now, their offer is accepted, a ‘share offer’ is planned to raise the £210,000 they need to buy the pub and make some improvements.

This is the same approach as taken by previous campaigns to save pubs including the Case is Altered at Bentley and The Maybush in Great Oakley, with them becoming community-owned pubs.

A co-operative company has been formed, the Great Bromley Cross Pub Community Benefit Society (CBS). It will sell shares of between £250 and £20,000 in this CBS and the CBS will use the money to buy the pub.

Three local couple have agreed to underwrite £150,000 to speed up the buying process, but campaign secretary Jim Craddock hopes that more than the minimum £60,000 can be raised.

“I’m excited our bid has been accepted. It’s fantastic news but it’s been a very long struggle,” he said.

The pub, thought to be 200 years old, closed last May and put on the market. Unable to afford the £395,000 price tag, things looked bleak, with the garden also sold for development.

“The developer who still owned the building spoke to us. We put it an offer and it was accepted. He’s been very helpful and is a good guy to work with. He genuinely wants the community to buy the pub,” Jim said.

John Howard has worked in property for 30 years and is involved in projects including Ipswich waterfront, plus housing schemes in Brighton and Norwich. The former Cambridge United FC director is also managing director of Auction House UK and is a regional MD for estate agents Fine and Country.

Jim said he hopes to get the share scheme approved by the taxman in the next few weeks, so tax relief would be available to investors, and then he can begin the fundraising campaign in earnest.

But Jim warns the price is based on a quick sale, so he feels that time is running out already.

The plan is to open the pub in December, which will be staffed by volunteers, selling only drinks, no food, for several sessions a week. Following the model of other community-run pubs, there would also be music nights, quiz nights and some occasional food, such as fish and chips.

Jim also hopes Great Bromley Post Office, which was based in the pub, will re-open for a few sessions a week in the same back room, but run by a mobile post master.

In the meantime, a further fundraiser is planned for Saturday August 13, a pop up pub and BBQ at Primrose Farm, Great Bromley, with the Harwich Leading Light Morris Dancers.