Planners have refused a bid to change the use of the former Liverpool Arms, in Baldrine, from a pub to residential.

Owners Heron and Brearley have said the pub is ’no longer viable’.

Rejecting the application (18/00870/C), planners said: ’The evidence that has been submitted or otherwise was insufficient to justify the loss of the public house.

’The applicant has not provided any evidence of attempts to market the property as a business in its current form and it has not been adequately demonstrated that the use is no longer, or cannot be made, commercially viable.’

The property, on the Main Road, is listed as being ’under offer’ on Black Grace Cowley’s website. Its sale price was £310,000.

In its submission to planners, Heron and Brearley said the pub was not viable in the winter and had only limited trade during the summer.

Garff Commissioners objected to the change of use, saying it would be a loss of a ’important local amenity’.

The board also felt the application was ’premature’ as it didn’t believe every attempt to market the Liverpool Arms had been made by the brewery. Meanwhile, a number of residents also opposed the change of use.

It’s not the first time planners have refused applications to change the use of pubs to residential.

The same reason was given by the planning committee in 2018 when it turned down a bid by Jim Limited to demolish the former Waterfall pub in Glen Maye and replace it with four terraced homes.

And a similar application made in 2011 for the Bridge Inn, New Road, Laxey, was refused, with planners saying it ’represents the loss of a facility that is of benefit to Laxey and the wider community’.

The Liverpool Arms closed its doors to customers in October 2017.