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Published: 29 July, 2010
by JOSH LOEB

CAMPAIGNERS fighting to save the Duke of Hamilton pub have thrown their hat into the ring in the competition to take over its lease.

Former middle distance runner David Bedford, who set world and British records in the 1970s and drinks at the Duke, has said he is prepared to buy the lease “for the people of Hampstead”.

He put forward the proposal – which was unanimously passed – at a campaign meeting in the Magdala pub, South End Green, on Saturday.

He said: “We will investigate setting ourselves up as a community trust so that we are in a position, should we be offered the lease or offered the freehold, to have ourselves in a legal entity.”

He added: “I am interested in taking the pub not on my own behalf but on behalf of the people of Hampstead. I would not take the lease if I could not then hand it over to the trust. 

“I’m not looking at this as a business interest for myself.”

Mr Bedford proposes establishing a trust “run by the community for the community”, with all profits from the pub being reinvested into it. Last week it emerged the Duke had been granted a stay of execution after its owners, the Wellington Pub Company, withdrew a planning application to turn it into two luxury homes. 

The company had been advised the plans would be turned down on three counts: the change of use from a pub to homes, alterations to the front of the pub and plans to fell the ash tree in the back yard.

Campaigners now fear the pub could be closed and boarded up after current landlord Michael “Woody” Wooderson’s lease runs out in September. They say a new application for homes could then be submitted to the council on the grounds the pub was lying derelict.

Hampstead Town Conservative councillor Chris Knight told the meeting: “I suspect [the developers] are looking for their money, and I suspect they are looking for it as quickly as possible.”

Last week Mr Wooderson accused some campaigners of “jumping on a bandwagon”, claiming that most of the 500-plus people who had signed a petition to save the Duke never drink there. 

At Saturday’s meeting, which was attended by around 25 people, Mr Bedford said Mr Wooderson and his wife Mary had been “great servants to the community” over the years.

Hampstead Liberal Democrat councillor Linda Chung told the meeting that campaigners could take heart from the London Development Framework – a new set of planning guidelines due to be adopted by Camden Council later this year that place importance on “preserving community use” of buildings, in particular pubs. 

Paul Davies and Kirk McGrath, who run Kentish Town’s Pineapple pub and Belsize Park’s Sir Richard Steele, have previously said that they are also in the market for buying the pub’s lease if it is renewed and put up for sale.

Mr Davies this week added that he would be willing to work with Mr Bedford, saying: “If he can make it work, we’d back him up.”