CAMPAIGNERS have submitted a bid to make a demolition-threatened Lower Gornal pub an Asset of Community Value in a last-ditch effort to try and save the historic boozer.

A committee of locals and CAMRA members have submitted the bid to Dudley Council to have The Fiddlers Arms recognised as an ACV in the hope that it could delay proceedings by at least six months.

At public meeting on Friday May 19 - pub campaigner Martin Day, who is aide to West Midlands UKIP MEP and Sedgley councillor Bill Etheridge, told pubgoers the measure would buy valuable time in the fight to save the locally listed pub which has been earmarked for demolition as part of plans by property company NewRiver Retail to build a new Co-op convenience store on the site in Straits Road.

Mr Etheridge, a member of the Campaign for Real Ale and a candidate for UKIP in Dudley North in the General Election, has previously accused NewRiver bosses of playing "dirty tricks in their quest to wilfully destroy listed buildings" and he said: "It is great to see the community coming together in this way to save a local asset.

“I feel it is very important to save our pubs from this sort of unnecessary development.

“The deal that saw Marston’s sell 250 pubs to NewRiver Retail for development has left dozens of Black Country pubs under threat.

“Dudley and its surrounding area has seen enough historical pubs close. We must do our best to protect those that are left."

A number of pubs in the borough have been granted ACV status which gives community groups up to six months to raise funds and prepare a bid to buy a property and keep it in community use if it is put up for sale or its ownership changes.

If the application for The Fiddlers is accepted the pub would go on Dudley's list alongside the Severn Stars in Sedgley, the Hare and Hounds in Wollescote, Halesowen's Maypole Inn, The Round of Beef at Colley Gate, The Tenth Lock in Brierley Hill and The Gigmill in Norton, Stourbridge.

Efforts to save The Fiddlers, which dates back to 1860 and which has been described by The Victorian Society as a "significant part of the townscape of Gornal", have also seen 880 people add their names to a petition to try and keep the bulldozers at bay and Mr Day said the pub has been bustling since campaigning got underway.

He said: “It has been lovely to see the pub get progressively busier during the time I’ve been involved with the campaign.

“The recent St George’s Family Fun Day not only provided a huge profits boost for the pub, but also raised £390 for charity.”

NewRiver Retail, which bought The Fiddlers along with a number of others across the borough with a view to developing them, sent Dudley Council a notification of demolition for pub earlier this year and work was said to be imminent back in March.

No-one from NewRiver Retail was available for comment at time of publishing this story.