Bid launched to make a Wolverhampton pub a community asset amid move to turn it into a Toby Carvery

More than 1,400 supporters have signed an online petition against a £1.5 million revamp project to convert the Cleveland Arms in Stowheath Lane into a Toby Carvery. Now the campaigners have set up a new action group.

The organisers say the new Eastfield Community Action Group will aid their fight to stop the pub being switched from Mitchells & Butlers (M&B) Sizzling Pub brand to its Toby chain. 

The action group will now apply to Wolverhampton Council to make the pub an Asset of Community Value, meaning a property which is considered to be of importance to the area's social well-being and cultural identity. 

However, M&B said the pub will retain the name and the investment will enhance the premises and the building's viability. It also said the move will create 30 new jobs.

The action group is also hoping that M&B representatives will agree to a meeting to hear to their concerns following claims that the brewery had not consulted with the public before deciding to make changes to the premises which hosts popular celebrity sport nights. 

The newly elected  Eastfield Community Action Group chairperson is Janet Hancock who also helped to launch the Save The Cleveland Arms campaign and a banner-waving protest outside the pub to help raise awareness of the issue.

Mrs Hancock said: “It’s very disappointing that M& B won’t give us the courtesy of a face-to-face meeting. We feel that they should do this at the very least, seeing as we spend our hard-earned cash in this pub every week of the year.”

The pub regularly organises events to support charities such as Wolverhampton's Good Shepherd and Compton Care organisations and the group is claiming that such events would no longer take place under the branding change.

Wolverhampton South East MP Pat McFadden and ward councillors have all written to brewery bosses to request that they listen to the  campaigners.