COUNCIL chiefs today (Thursday) increased the protection on the Old White Bear pub in Hampstead with a new demand that planning permission must be obtained if developers seek to turn it into offices or a restaurant.

An attempt to turn the pub in Well Road into a six-bedroom house was thrown out by the Town Hall's planning department earlier this year. Now, officials have formally removed the right to develop it in other ways without proper planning consent.

The news comes after nearly 4,000 people signed online and written petitions calling for the council to block the application by developer Braaid Ventures Ltd to convert the historic building into a house in February.

Under planning law, a developer does not usually have to apply for permission to convert a pub into an office or retail space, however, and it was feared by the campaigners that if the developers went down that route it would prove a prelude to eventually making it a house in the future.

Campaigners, who wrote over 500 letters in support of the council's protection order, known as an 'Article 4 Direction', welcomed the decision to make it permanent, and said it left them on “more secure ground” to negotiate over the future of the building, which they would like to see re-opened as a pub, potentially under community management.

Leean Pindar, who helped organise the campaign, told the New Journal: “It is very rare that Article 4s are given – and made permanent- so it is quite huge. It is fantastic obviously, so now we are waiting really to see what the developer's next move is. We are all hopeful we can get together with them, now our cards are on the table. We are happy to discuss with them a possible buy out by the community, if we are given enough time and the price is reasonable enough, but the balls in their court now.”

She added: “It is a mini victory- the pub is still shut but this makes it much harder for them to start the process of turning it into house. It means that any conversion to retail office or restaurant now requires planning consent- it means their permitted development rights now no longer apply. It was a big decision by Camden and shows that people in general don't want their pubs to close.”

The pub, which has been operating on that site in one form or another since 1704, closed its door in February, sparking a campaign by local residents to re-open it that gathered the support of celebrities Ricky Gervais and Ever Decreasing Circles actor Peter Egan.