New plans to replace Much Hadham’s Jolly Waggoners pub with three homes

Three detached homes could replace Much Hadham’s abandoned Jolly Waggoners pub.

Sandhill Homes has launched a fresh bid to bulldoze the boozer after similar attempts dating back to 2012.

In a planning application to East Herts Council, the developer’s planning statement notes the building is in a “poor state of repair” and would need “significant upfront refurbishment costs”.

The Jolly Waggoners has been empty for around 14 years and, according to Sandhill Homes, sits beyond the edge of the village “where it would not be likely that residents would access the public house”.

The statement reads: “The presence of this venue (amongst others in the vicinity) would create competition from a range of existing public houses which would further harm its economic viability as a commercial business. These interrelated factors… cannot be divorced from changing consumer behaviour, with people increasingly choosing to consume alcohol within their home environments.

“Consequently, the loss of the public house to facilitate the proposed residential development, given the adequacy of the marketing of the property previously undertaken, the current state of repair of the building and the divorced location of the application site weighing heavily against the future viability in using the site as a public house, and the presence of a public house already in the settlement of Much Hadham.”

Sandhill argues its scheme would “not only provide high-quality homes for future residents but also utilise a brownfield site, emphasising development on previously developed land”.

The homes would have deep front gardens and landscape buffers with driveways to set them back from the B1004 Widford Road.

Much Hadham has lost two pubs since the end of the 2000s. After the Jolly Waggoners closed, The Old Crown was turned into a house in 2013, leaving The Bull Inn as the village’s last remaining hostelry.

Sandhill Homes applied in 2019 for permission to build five homes on the Jolly Waggoners site and in 2022 for two homes, but EHC threw out both applications.

In 2014, the developer also applied to knock down the pub and replace it with a restaurant and inn, which the council green-lit.

In the 2019 decision, EHC decision-makers wrote: “It would appear that the public house was last open in 2010. Between 2010 and 2013 the site was subject to marketing and there was little-to-no work undertaken on the building or site, and it was noted in 2013 that the site appeared tired in appearance and overgrown in vegetation.”

They added that although EHC has a policy which aims to protect buildings which are in public or community use, the Jolly Waggoners’ poor condition and a previous attempt to sell the site means housing could be appropriate in place of a pub.

Instead, decision-makers ruled the homes “would not represent a sustainable form of development in accordance with the district plan’s hierarchy” – prioritising previously built-up sites first – “and would intrude into the rural countryside”.

To see planning applications and other public notices for your area, visit publicnoticeportal.uk.