Saturday, 7 March 2026
Hare and Hounds update
The Hare and Hounds Inn is now registered as an Asset of Community Value (ACV) under the Community Right to Bid scheme! If and when the property is put up for sale, there will be 6 months to put a community bid together. This was not the case when the Hare & Hounds Inn was put up for sale last summer.
Sadly, this cannot be applied retrospectively.
Hare and Hounds - Photo:HebWeb
Community bid
Thanks to the level of community support, Wadsworth Area Community Assets (WACA) are confident they could put together a successful bid if the current owner put the property up for sale. There are more than 320 individual objections registered on Calderdale's planning portal to the Change of Use (CoU) application. The petition to save the pub currently stands at nearly 1,000 signatures.
The implications of this to a property developer must be significant. The Hare and Hounds Inn is no longer likely to be of serious interest to a subsequent residential purchaser due to the delay and ongoing complications of selling on a property registered as an ACV.
Old Town's only pub is an asset to the community
By registering the Hare and Hounds Inn as an Asset of Community Value, Calderdale Planning department has made a public statement that the Inn is an asset to the community. There can be no argument that the building would be an asset to the community as a single residence.
Whilst this Asset of Community Value process acts independently from the CoU application process, both are managed by Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council Planning Department according to their own Local Plan policies. Designating the Hare and Hounds Inn an Asset of Community Value and then allowing Change of Use a short time later seems embarrassingly contradictory. What happens next?
The planning application has yet to be decided and there is no timescale for when this might happen.
More info
- Petition to save the Hare and Hounds from Closure
- WACA website
- WACA on Facebook
- Calderdale Planning section - to comment on the request for Change Of Use from a public house to a private residence, go to this page and enter 25/01249 in the search box. Until 3 Feb.
- Community consultation
Previously, on the HebWeb
- Old Town fights to save its pub: the Hare and Hounds (21 January)
- Save the Hare and Hounds (14 Dec 2025)
- HebWeb Forum (Oct 2020)
Thanks to WACA for this update