THE fight is on to reopen a village pub.

Residents in Boncath packed into the community hall last night (Wednesday November 16) to discuss a buy-out of the Boncath Inn.

It was standing room only as around 100 villagers attended the meeting and voted unanimously to set up a committee to look into buying the pub and running it as a community-led asset.

The pub and adjoining car park are currently on the market for £254,950 but the meeting heard that negotiations were already taking place to sell part of the car park for possible redevelopment and that time was of the essence.

A similar community scheme was recently highly successful involving the Tafarn Sinc pub at nearby Rosebush and committee members from that successful bid were at the meeting last night to offer advice and encouragement.

‘Don’t be afraid, be positive and go for it’, was the message from the Tafarn Sinc.

That campaign attracted huge interest and £400,000 investment funded by a share issue and peer-to-peer lending and is now open once more as a community-run pub.

Shan Williams, from Cardigan’s 4CG organisation, told the meeting: “The only way we can control what happens in our communities is when we own them.

“If you want to keep this pub open in the community now is your chance to secure it for future generations.”

Pembrokeshire county councillor Cris Tomos, who also works for PLANED – an organisation which supports community-led developments – was on hand to explain how funding packages could work and how people who bought shares in the venture would then have a say in the running of the pub.

He highlighted other similar successful community ventures such as the scheme to buy Ysgol Hermon back in January 2008 and turn it into a vibrant community hub.

Meeting organiser Kevin Davies said: “It is great to see so many people turn out and clearly there is interest in this project.”