THE controversial closure of an Exmoor public house is to be raised in Parliament by new West Somerset MP Rachel Gilmour.

Mrs Gilmour is putting a question to Rural Affairs Secretary Steve Reed asking if he would speak with Exmoor National Park Authority on its policy regarding pub closures.

The move follows a planning application by Trudi and Mark Underhill to convert the George Inn, Brompton Regis, to holiday accommodation.

The couple closed the pub last week, saying it was not financially viable and they had struggled in the three years since buying it.

But it prompted an angry response from local residents who have formed a ‘Save the George’ campaign group to look at making a community bid to manage it as a social enterprise

Ms Gilmour attended a public meeting in Brompton Regis Village Hall where discussions were held on what the community could do to save the pub.

People spoke of what they saw as ‘missed opportunities’ and ‘poor customer service’ which they felt might have contributed to the pub becoming unviable, and complained of frequent and irregular ‘unannounced closures’ and issues such as a ‘dilapidated frontage’.

The meeting was chaired by Exmoor Cllr Steven Pugsley, who said park officers promised if the application needed to go to committee, it would be an open meeting where everybody would have an opportunity to have their say.

One objector, Imogen Berry, who was unable to attend the meeting, said in a letter read on her behalf: “The pub is at the heart of the village and to take it away would be to take away a part of the spirit and heritage of Brompton.

“As much as I love Trudi and Mark, the inconsistent opening times make it an unreliable pub to go for a midweek pint after work.

“I look at villages like Molland and feel sad that the community is no longer because nearly the whole village is holidays cottages.”

The meeting agreed to seek discussions with Mr and Mrs Underhill.

Brompton Regis parish councillors later met to discuss the planning application and agreed to object to it.

Mr Underhill told the Free Press: “We have invested so much time and money in trying to make it viable.

“Sadly, there are just too few customers to make it viable and we are simply not able to continue to subsidise it to keep it open.

“It may well have been a different story if all the people now objecting to our planning application had made a point of coming to the pub for a drink or a meal a few times per week.

“We would much rather have an ongoing viable business use for it than leave it empty and doing nothing.

“We were surprised and saddened to see comments about missed opportunities and poor customer service and feel that is unfair as we do not think we could reasonably have done more than we have.

“Our website reviews are very good with 78 per cent on Tripadvisor being ‘excellent’ and an overall rating of 4.5.”