Residents will be aware that the Blane Valley Inn sadly closed its doors in February. New owners have filed a planning application to convert the pub into a private house. The planning application is number 20/00252/FUL and the related documents can be viewed online here. A clip of the proposed site plan is shown below.
Any comments you wish to make should be filed by email to planning@stirling.gov.uk and please copy the community council at contact@strathblanecc.org.uk when you do. You can also file comments online – we would love to receive a copy at the same time. The application has been advertised some time ago, so please file any comments as soon as possible, and by 18 May 2020 at the latest. Normally we would also invite comments and discussion at a community council meeting, but those are on hold.
The pub is (was?) of course a precious asset for the community, used as a gathering place by young as well as old, and a valuable place of employment too.
What do you think of this loss? Some view the loss of the pub as inevitable. Others recognise the difficulties but fear the consequences.
There was reportedly at least one offer to buy the pub as a going concern, when it was sold for a house. Can we sustain two pubs? Can we gamble on only one…? We can hope that (as far as we know), the Kirkhouse Inn will thrive again after the lockdown, but the hospitality industry is so precarious, nothing can be taken for granted. Both pubs had opened and closed a few times in recent memory.
