The ‘Save The Silks’ campaign has been gaining real momentum with last week’s virtual town hall meeting attracting more than 110 people including local Devizes constituency MP Danny Kruger, who reaffirmed his support for the campaign.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s announcement in his budget speech today that £150 million of funding would be made available to local communities to support them in taking ownership of local pubs through matching locally raised funds to prevent many from closing for good was welcomed by The Ogbourne Community Pub Society as this could help towards the realisation of the funding goal.
Stuart Williamson, Chairperson of the society said “Community Pub projects like ours have the potential to deliver much more than just a pub with the members having a say in the community services that should be delivered alongside the traditional food, drink and social aspects of a quality local.
Reducing social isolation, supporting and hosting local interest groups as well as encouraging access to the countryside are all objectives we hope to deliver if we are successful in our campaign and we hope that today’s budget announcement gives all community pub groups a better chance of success. It’s more important than ever that we now accelerate our community share offer fundraising to give us the strongest possible chance of success”.
Since opening applications for their share offer last month they have already passed their first milestone of raising £50,000 of the £240,000 target. Details of the share offer are at savethesilks.org giving people from the local community and further afield the opportunity to own a slice of a pub.
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