The London Road community is to get the chance to buy and run the Rose Hill Tavern after successfully using campaigning to stop it from being turned into flats.
Developer Evenden Estates is putting the Brighton boozer back on the market after its plans were rejected by Brighton and Hove City Council last week.
This followed the listing of the 144-year-old pub as an asset of community value (ACV), which means that if it is put up for sale, the community has six months to raise enough money to buy it.
It now falls to the Save the Rose Hill Tavern Action Group to put its money where its mouth is and raise the necessary funds.
The group is organising a public meeting to discuss its next steps.
Evenden Estates director Joanne Harris said that the company made the decision to sell up after its planning application was rejected.
She said: “We have informed the council of our wish to dispose of the premises. This is following the decision and comments made by some of the councillors at the planning committee.
“Seven of the 12 councillors voted against our planning application for a change of use to housing, and against the recommendation from the planning officer who had advised the committee that, in planning terms, the loss of the Rose Hill Tavern, which has been closed for nearly a year, did not prevent the local community from meeting their day to day needs as there are at least 10 other pubs within 500 metres of the Rose Hill Tavern, ranging from small traditional pubs to larger music venue pubs.
“Brighton has a huge shortage of housing. The fact that this pub is included on the council’s list of ACVs shouldn’t, in my opinion, have affected the planning application to the extent that it has.
“We therefore thought that it was time to now offer the premises for sale on the open market, which means that the local community group has the opportunity that they have been campaigning for, to make a bid for the premises to run it as a community pub.”
