A GROUP has been set up to save a village pub near Wem which closed at the end of September due to rising costs.

The Horse and Jockey in Ellesmere Road in Northwood closed after the pub had become too expensive to run. Now the group Friends of the Horse and Jockey hope to be able to save it.

A meeting was held to discuss the future of the pub on Thursday, October 20 in the Dickin Arms in Loppington.

Louise Paton is involved in the campaign to prevent the pub from closing permanently and said the pub was one of only two community venues in the village.

"We have really good relations in the village with the Northwood Methodist chapel and the chapel allow us to use their chapel for a number of village events," she said.

"But obviously as a chapel, there are certain types of village events which it is not suitable for and nor would we want to impose on the chapel things which it is not set up to do.

"The only other community venue which was incredibly attended and well loved was the pub."

She added: "It was a proper local pub, but it also had really rich visiting groups.

"There were people from nearby campsites and there were people who came to visit people in the village from different areas of the country and it has been very loved by a huge range of people."

Louise paid tribute to the previous owners, Dawn Davies, her husband Derren and their daughters Taylor and Kaitlin.

"The Davies' as a family have been superb landlords and landladies," she said.

"They did remarkable things for the village, they took it over in November 2020 about a week before Boris Johnson declared the second lockdown.

"When they were able to open back up again, they made a real effort to make the outside area nice and welcoming and comfortable.

"They were such fantastic hosts, it was brilliant."

The plight of the Horse and Jockey pub was recently raised in Parliament by the MP for North Shropshire, Helen Morgan and she asked about the Government's assistance package.

She said: "The Horse and Jockey pub in Northwood in my constituency closed before the government's assistance package was announced.

"It's one of many businesses that will not be continuing beyond April.

"And there are many others that manage to remain open, who are struggling to secure bank facilities, struggling to reassure suppliers, struggling to reassure customers, because businesses need certainty to be able to thrive.

"So I'd like to understand from the minister what the government is going to do to provide some certainty for these critical businesses beyond the winter period?"