A community in Corwen have launched a £500,000 appeal to save a historic hotel. The Owain Glyndŵr Hotel is being offered to the community for a knockdown price, but residents only have until July 1 of this year to raise the money needed.
The Denbighshire hotel is said to be one of Wales' most famous hotels, where the first public Eisteddfod was held and as suggested by the name has close ties with the last native Prince of Wales, Owain Glyndŵr. The hotel also stands on Corwen's London Road, which is a section of the A5 from London to Holyhead which has carried Roman Legions, horse-drawn mail coaches and now motorists for almost 2,000 years.
The hotel, which is a Grade II-listed building, is one of just eight remaining coaching inns on the A5. Its current owner, Ifor Sion, has been at the helm for 25 years but put the building on the market three years ago. The owner has offered the building for just £300,000.
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Corwen Partnership vows to buy the building and aims to invest an additional £200,000 on upgrades in order to create a community enterprise. The chair of the partnership is David Counsell, who is a retired intensive care consultant and has lived in Corwen with his wife Helen for almost 20 years.
According to David, he and many others have very fond memories of spending time at the Owain Glyndŵr Hotel "Corwen has a very special place in our hearts," he told WalesOnline. "We like the community here and we've grown a part of it over the years. Like many places, Corwen had five pubs until recently. Now, it's only got three.
"All of them, I think, have a dubious future. It's a bit hard to know how long they will continue trading. TheOwain Glyndŵr Hotel is obviously a landmark pub - a lot of people have fond memories there, whether that is by meeting their partners there, having a celebration, people got married and had their reception there and so on.
"It's been up for sale for three years now and I know that the current owner was approached by property developers more than people who genuinely wanted to take it over as a pub and hotel. We are very concerned over what its future is. We could potentially end up with no pub or hotel in Corwen if it ends up in the wrong hands.
"So, we negotiated with the current owner for £300,000 - he has given us exclusivity and he's not going to put it back on the market. He's given us 12 months until this July to buy it. He's give us time but if we don't come up with the money, we could potentially lose one of the town's major assets."
The community came together and formed the Corwen Partnership in July of last year. Since then, they have been busy setting up governance in place as well as registering the enterprise with the Financial Conduct Authority as the Owain Glyndŵr Community Hotel Limited.
The partnership has so far been backed by Corwen Town Council, Cadwyn Clwyd, South Denbighshire Community Partnership and many other local business. On St David's Day, March 1, this year, the group officially launched its appeal with a share issue and four open days that allowed people to take a tour of the site.
Each share is worth £200, with one vote allocated to each shareholder irrespective of the number of shares they have bought. A business plan suggests that the building could eventually make a profit of £100,000 a year. According to Mr Counsell, the response and support has been "phenomenal". He added that the partnership had big plans to make the enterprise a meaningful investment to the community.
He said: "We've been going for a couple of weeks now. On launch day on March 1, 'Owain Glyndŵr' came on his horseback to open the share offer and there was good crowd that turned out to see that in town. We had open days for four days, quite a lot of people visited, we did mini tours not of the whole building as it’s huge.
"At the moment, the pub part is the only functioning part of the building. But people were surprised to find out it was actually in good repair, I think a lot of people were thinking that we were buying a wreck but it’s not. It needs a bit of modernisation but it doesn’t really need major restoration or reconstruction.
"There’s been a lot of interest, especially online. So far, we’ve raised £50,000. We are still a long way to go but it’s still early days. We have over 90 shareholders so far. There’s a lot of support really, both locally and from far and wide. We got an application this morning that came from a lady who is from Corwen but now lives in New Zealand, and she is now a shareholder. I’m surprised with how far and wide it has reached people."
He added: "We are hoping, once we’ve bought the place, to get grants and things together to do things like get a lift in. So we can improve their access, especially to the function rooms and hotel rooms.
"We hope to make it more than just a hotel boozer. We’re hoping to get the restaurant back up and running, and we hope to make it very much a focal point to the community and a place to do community activities, for weddings or funerals. Offer several function rooms that can be used for different events, clubs and societies.
"Ultimately, this is about a community venture. If in the future we are profitable, which we hope to be, then the profits have to go back to the local community for other community projects. It’s a very community-focus project."
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