PLANS to convert a prominent Garndolbenmaen pub into a home have been deferred by Gwynedd planning committee members for a second time in a bid to give a community group more time to get funding together to buy it.

Following the Cross Foxes Inn closure in March 2017, the Garndolbenmaen Community Group have been busy fighting to take over the site to continue to run it as a community pub.

The group put those plans to Gwynedd Council after an application was made from a developer to change the pub into a home – a plan which went before planning committee members in February.

The committee decided to defer the decision in February “in order to give the local community group the opportunity to submit evidence of their intention to purchase the building in order to keep its use as a public house”.

The application to change the use of the building, which has been backed by the council’s planning off­icers, was heard again by members on 16 April.

Members agreed to once again defer the application “so that additional evidence could be received regarding a realistic financial package that would enable them to purchase the property”.

It is expected the application will now be considered again at the end of June.

Following the closure of the pub, which had been on the market for more than four years with no buyer coming forward, a public meeting was held in the village in a bid to keep the building as a community asset.

Garndolbenmaen Community Group said the response to keeping the pub in the community “has been overwhelmingly positive” and has provided them “with a mandate to try to create a community-owned asset­ in the heart of this old village”.

Read the full story in this week’s north editions of the Cambrian News