CAMPAIGNERS are celebrating victory in their bid to reopen Hampstead’s historic Old White Bear as a pub.

Pints will be pulled again at the 300-year-old Well Road institution after an eight-month community protest to save it from being turned into a six-bedroom house by developers. 

According to leisure property adviser CDG Leisure, who brokered the deal, developers Braaid Ventures Ltd are preparing to hand the grade II-listed building over to a pub company, with details to be released next week.

Leean Pindar, who helped run the Save the Bear campaign, welcomed the news as “wonderful, in theory”. 

The historic building received the full legal backing of the council in June after it made a rare “Article 4 Direction” protection order permanent. 

Planners rejected a bid by developers to convert the pub into housing earlier this year after 4,000 people signed petitions supported by comedian Ricky Gervais and Ever Decreasing Circles actor Peter Egan.