Starter homes planned for Poacher pub site in Scunthorpe if demolition goes ahead

ONE of Scunthorpe's best-known pubs could be flattened in a move that could see a new housing development built there.

The planned major investment by property developer David Brown comes three months after The Poacher ceased trading due to a lack of support.

The estate pub, on Marsden Drive, opened 45 years ago.

If planners give the nod for the demolition and a later homes application, it would become the site for 10 three-bedroom town houses, which are due to be completed next year.

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A spokeswoman for the former owners at Enterprise Inns confirmed The Poacher was sold last month. The sale came after the site had been on the open market for at least three months, with no restriction on its future use.

Mr Brown, 58, the managing director of Merryvale Developments at West Stockwith, described the proposed demolition of the pub as "a strange twist of fate".

He said: "The Poacher was designed in the 1960s for the old Barnsley Brewery by local architects Brown and Buttrick, in which my late father Derek Brown was a partner.

"In the 1970s, I was also a regular at the pub when it boasted a highly successful Sunday football club.

"For sentimental reasons, I am hoping to incorporate the iconic title of The Poacher in the name of the new estate."

Mr Brown said the new starter homes, if eventually approved, would be on sale for around £100,000 a time on the open market.

If the site is flattened, The Poacher would only be the second Scunthorpe-area pub to be demolished since 2000.

The Brown Cow on Ashby High Street was pulled down that year to make way for an Aldi supermarket. Before that, the Furnace Arms on Scunthorpe High Street was demolished in 1996 for the former Club 2000 night spot to be built on the site.

The Crosby Hotel in Normanby Road is also due to be pulled down to make way for a nursing home.