Check the latest public notices in your area – planning, roads and licensing
A long-time pub’s last days are numbered after permission was granted to turn it into a shop.
The Malvern Inn, in Dover has been run by Carol Morris for the past 44 years – but now the landlady is set to retire.
The venue, in Clarendon Road, was put on the market in August last year, and planning permission has now been approved to turn it into a small convenience store.
Mrs Morris says she has signed the relevant contracts and expects the pub, which had been continually losing trade, may finally close as soon as the beginning of June.
She told KentOnline: “I don’t know the exact date, but it will be announced on the pub’s Facebook page.
“I want to retire, but it will be mixed emotions. After 44 years running this pub, the end will suddenly hit me.
“But everyone knew it was coming.
“If you don’t use it, you lose it. I did everything I could to keep customers.”
The full permission was granted by Dover District Council (DDC) under delegated powers on May 15.
A council officer’s statement said: “The proposed retail unit is considered to constitute a local shop, selling a modest range of convenience goods.
“The development is therefore considered to be acceptable in principle.
“The proposed shop would be a small-scale neighbourhood convenience store intended primarily for nearby local residents.”
In documents submitted to the authority as part of the application, agents Stoker Architecture said: “Alternative public houses remain available within walking distance and the wider Dover area, ensuring continued access to such facilities for local residents
“The proposal replaces a failing use with a viable neighbourhood service. It provides a practical reuse of the premises.”
Mrs Morris, now 78, decided to put the pub on the market last August as trade dwindled.
The Malvern, which accepts only cash for payment, is the last of three pubs on the Clarendon and Westbury estate.
The Westbury Hotel closed by 2005 and The Engineer shut in April 2007. Both their buildings have since been converted into housing.
Further out in the Folkestone Road area, the Alma, Orange Tree and Webbs Hotel have also vanished in the last 25 years.
The nearest pubs now to the Malvern are the Priory Hotel plus the Golden Lion and Prince Albert in the town centre.
The Malvern Inn itself became a pub in 1882, less than a decade after the Clarendon neighbourhood was first built.
Mrs Morris and her late husband Roger took over the pub on February 8, 1982.
In 2016, they bought the pub from Shepherd Neame brewery, but in March 2021, Mr Morris died aged 75 from cancer.
Since then Mrs Morris has run the pub alone and has become Dover’s second longest-running publican.
The record is held by Jackie Bowles of the Louis Armstrong, in Maison Dieu Road, from 1962 until her death in 2019.
The applicant for the store is Thevalingam Thevakumar. He is from the Nirja Convenience Store in Goschen Road, Tower Hamlets.
No extensions or front alterations are proposed and the external appearance of the building will remain unchanged.
A planning condition is that its opening hours are to be from 7am to 10pm, Monday to Friday.
