Derelict canal side pub under new demolition plans

The former Bridge Inn pub in Bridge Street, Cotmanhay. Image from Eddie Bisknell.

New plans to demolish a derelict Derbyshire pub have been filed more than a year after the owner was ordered to secure the problem site or bulldoze it.

The former Bridge Inn pub in Bridge Street, Cotmanhay, which sits alongside the canal and close to Bennerley Viaduct, has been an eyesore and anti-social behaviour hotspot for years instead of a tranquil watering hole.

Last March, Erewash Borough Council ordered the owner, Bridge Inn Cotmanhay Developments Ltd, to secure the site against constant trespass or demolish the pub within 35 days – which it did not.

Now the owner, registered to Paul Street in London and bought for £200,000 in 2020 from former owner David Hilton of Maxwell Cohen, has filed plans to demolish the derelict former boozer.

The pub closed in April 2019, with plans to demolish it approved that same year, but they were never enacted due to planning legislation changes for pubs.

A29-apartment scheme for the site was then submitted in 2020 but withdrawn in 2022.

What should be a landmark gateway for the river, canal and Bennerley Viaduct had  been dubbed “the anti-social behaviour centre” by Erewash MP Adam Thompson.

On a visit to the vacant pub last summer the Local Democracy Reporting Service found the ceiling had collapsed and been burned away in many spots and there was little if nothing left to salvage, with widespread graffiti inside and outside the building.

A sign which once bore all of the individual letters spelling “The Bridge Inn”, which have slowly gone missing over time, was blank.

Its car park and beer garden were home to a fly-tipped fridge and were overgrown with weeds.

The council had said, following the lack of action from the owner following a legal order, it would take action to secure the site with steel shutters, which would be charged to the owner, but it would not be looking to demolish the former pub.

Residents had claimed the police were “sick” of the problems caused by the site and that the fire service said the building will only be able to handle one more blaze.

A resident who had lived a few doors away from the former pub for 50 years had claimed parts of the structure were unsound and that a child had fallen through part of the roof on one of the lower levels.

A second resident said: “It must be 30-plus times we have seen police and fire come down here, with the last incident last week with youths breaking in. It is not fair on us living here so close by.” 

Andrew Dixon of Bridge Inn Cotmanhay Developments is listed as the applicant, who is co-director of the London-registered firm with Nicholas Reagen.

GKS Bridging Services, incorporated in the Cayman Islands, has a legal interest in the property, as of December 2019, meaning it has been used to secure a debt or mortgage.

GBP Padgbury Lane Ltd owns the majority of Bridge Inn Cotmanhay Developments Limited.

Mr Reagen owns GBP Padgbury Lane Ltd and is in charge of six further companies, all of which are for the “development of building projects”.

Erewash Borough Council will make a decision on the new demolition plans in the next few months.