An appeal by a group of villagers to buy their local pub has nearly reached its £200,000 target.

There were fears that Tafarn y Plu in Llanystumdwy, near Criccieth, would shut and be turned into a house when it was put on sale in 2015.

The pub is opposite the home of former Prime Minister David Lloyd George and is popular with locals and tourists alike.

Last year a group of locals set up a community benefit enterprise called Menter y Plu to try and save the listed pub – the last one in the village – to raise the £195,000 asking price and £5,000 extra to cover legal fees.

So far, Menter y Plu has raised a total of £76,000 by selling shares for £100 each, but they need to raise a further £4,000 before receiving £120,000 in grants and loans from the Wales Council for Voluntary Action to buy the building.

The enterprise also received support from Arloesi Gwynedd Wledig to establish a crowdfunding campaign inviting people to invest.

One of the enterprise’s members, Tegid Jones said: “We’re nearly there. The crowdfunding campaign has been a great boost for us in terms of marketing and attracting new shareholders.

“We have now reached £76,000 which is 95 per cent of our target and we are encouraging anybody to join with almost 300 shareholders and supporters to help us reach the target.”

He added: “We are confident that we will succeed to raise the rest of the money over the coming weeks and look forward to opening the doors.”

The pub is still partly open at present and the hope now is that it can open again each day – hopefully over the summer.

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