People power saves village pub in Cornwall as locals raise over £400,000
St Austell Brewery went on the market for £550,00 and locals needed at least £350,000 to enter into talks with the brewery
Last updated 2nd Oct 2025
With no shop, many businesses closing over the years and a plethora of holiday lets, the one thing a Cornish coastal village needed was its pub.
So when St Austell Brewery announced it was going to sell the Ship Inn, it sent shockwaves through Portloe and the surrounding hamlets on the Roseland Peninsula.
Following concerns raised at a Veryan Parish Council meeting, it wasn’t long before residents – including a number of second home owners who are very much part of the community – decided to try and buy it themselves.
It was a tall order for the Save Our Ship group. The pub went on the market for £550,00 and they needed at least £350,000 to enter into talks with the brewery.
After months of campaigning and fundraising – including a £15,000 cash injection from Cornwall Council’s Good Growth Fund – they’ve only gone and done it.
After raising over £400,000 to purchase the freehold of the 18th century pub, as agreed with the brewery, local residents are now looking ahead to the next chapter – restoring the pub and finding the right tenant to bring it back to life.
Luke Dunstone, a leading member of the Save Our Ship group and a Veryan parish councillor, said: “We hope to get it running for December and the Christmas and new year period. The important thing now is to find a tenant, managers or people with ideas of how it might work. We’re hoping that someone will be fired up by the excitement of the project – I don’t know if we’re the first community-run pub in Cornwall, but there aren’t very many.
“Sixty per cent of the 90 or so properties in the old village have pledged money towards the project. We’ve been so lucky with the level of expertise on the little management group. Legally it’s been a lot of work to get it up and running.”
The group has just been awarded the Community Shares Standard Mark, which means they are now able to apply for different pots of funding and to launch a share offer.