OKEHAMPTON pub-goers, who claim business is not booming at the Moorcroft Inn because 75 per cent of the regulars have been barred, are launching a campaign to save their local.

Former regular users of the Moorcroft Inn at Exeter Road dispute Peter and Nuran Stephenson's comments that the pub is not a viable business and are set to present a petition at a forthcoming appeal into West Devon Council's refusal of planning permission for six houses and two bungalows at the site.

Led by Okehampton Hamlets ward member Noel Cartwright, the planning committee recently rejected the plans by Sylvan Developments on the grounds that the hostelry, which closed as a public house five months ago, is an important community facility and the only one at the eastern end of the town.

But the housing company claims the pub has been losing money for years.

David Lockhurst, who says he was banned from the premises because he signed the first petition to keep it open, has commended the borough council's stance: 'The previous owners of the Moorcroft Inn sold off the campsite which was attached to the site for housing and we, the locals, do not want the same thing to happen again.

'How can the pub be a viable proposition when from day one people have been banned from using it for little or no reason. If you ban 75 per cent of your customers business is hardly going to be booming.'

Bill Norris, 76, said he used to have a couple of pints in the pub three times a week but since he signed the petition the owners did not want his custom.

'It is senseless to get rid of this pub when this area of town is growing — there is nothing else for people living here — we are nearly a mile from the centre of town,' he said.

'I live next to a pub and it is one of the reasons I moved here three years ago.'

Instigator of the petition Dave Bird said he had used the pub for the last 15 years and it had been a thriving business in the past.

'I ran it for a month with my wife while the owners were away and business was very good,' he said. 'In a minute Okehampton is going to be one massive housing estate and nothing else.'

Mr Bird said the petition was not against the owners: 'Firstly we want to save the pub because it is our local but with the industrial estate growing, all the new housing going up and the Yer Tiz Campsite situated nearby the potential is huge.'

The owners of the Moorcroft Inn declined to speak to the Okehampton Times but in an article last month following the planning decision they said they had tried everything to attract people to the inn, including introducing a happy hour and developing the meal side of the business.

This is the second time planners have rejected an application for housing at the Moorcroft Inn but the first appeal lodged by Sylvan Developments was lost on technical grounds. The inspector indicated at the time that the reason given by the planning committee about the loss of a community facility was not justified.

Director of Sylvan Developments Tony Hopper said it would be fair enough if 1,000 people signed the petition and actually used the pub but that was not the case.

'It's not just the last couple of years that business has been bad — there have been three or four owners in the last ten years and nobody has been able to make a go of it,' he said. 'If it was viable the owners would not be selling it, but as a pub it is a dead loss.'