Will 2025 be the year that a derelict pub site is finally transformed or will we be left with a ‘blot on the landscape forever’?
It’s almost nine months since South Holland District Council’s planning committee deferred making a decision on whether to approve a bid to demolish Spalding’s former Bull and Monkie to make way for an 88-bed care home.
Since then things have gone very quiet. No new documents have been lodged by the firm behind the plans, Crispin Holdings, with the application since 2023 — and the council has not announced when it will reappear before the committee.
The former Bull and Monkie pub
This has prompted some concerns that a chance to develop the site has been lost after councillors postponed the decision on the grounds of the scale of the care home building and the impact on the nearby St Mary and St Nicolas Parish Church.
One of the people who is concerned is Spalding St Mary’s councillor Dave Ashby, who told April’s planning committee that it was ‘lucky’ someone wanted to build on this plot.
Coun Ashby told LincsOnline: “I was on the planning committee that deferred this but I voted for it to go ahead.
Coun Dave Ashby
“The planning committee took notice of Spalding and District Civic Society who said that it was over development of the site and from the main road you couldn’t see the church, so I am concerned that this might not go ahead and that we are stuck with this blot on the landscape forever which is a great shame.”
His fellow ward member Coun Mark Le Sage said that the Bull and Monkie looked ‘awful’ when viewed alongside the historic buildings such as Ayscoughfee, St Mary and St Nicolas Church and the White Horse.
Coun Le Sage also said: “We are spending all that money to make the area near High Bridge look great and then you look across to the Bull and Monkie site.
“It is important that we do something with it as it is not in keeping.”
The proposals received a number of objections from public figures, groups and residents concerned the four-storey building would be too imposing for the riverside site, also questioning whether 13 proposed parking spaces would be enough to serve the care home.
The civic society had raised concerns about insufficient parking spaces, not enough outdoor amenity space, no provisions for motability vehicles and that refuse collection would not be possible for council operatives.
How the care home could look as viewed from Spalding’s Taku Bridge
Society chairman, John Bland, had spoken out against the plans at the planning meeting when he stated that the scale of the building would ‘dominate’ the nearby street scheme.
He is now calling on the developer to work with local groups on the application.
Mr Bland said: “The key requirement for the Bull and Monkie site is that whatever is brought forward respects the historic environment of the area, and I hope that the developer will engage with us and other interested parties to arrive at an acceptable use for the site.”
We have approached the architects behind the scheme for a comment.
Graffiti has been sprayed onto The Bull and Monkie in SpaldingDrawings show how the care home could lookHow the care home could have lookedHave we lost an opportunity to develop The Bull and Monkie into a care home?
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