09/03/2026
Not many will be able to read this article without a subscription, so the Half Moon Pub Group would like to clarify one thing: the Half Moon Sharow should be a small, thriving village pub today.
If it had been properly restored and a genuine lease marketed, as many residents were led to believe when it was purchased at a significant discount, Sharow might still have its only pub and a 200-year tradition alive.
Instead, four years of unlawful residential use were allowed to pass until they became lawful under weak planning legislation and painfully slow processes. By then, alterations to the building meant reopening as a pub had become increasingly unrealistic.
More than 250 villagers supported our efforts to save the Half Moon, and we gave hundreds of hours voluntarily to make it happen. That effort was ultimately defeated by delay and a planning system that allowed time to run out.
When the property is eventually sold as a house rather than a pub, its value will reflect that change, while our community receives nothing for what it has lost.
This is bigger than one building. Rural communities across the country are vulnerable to losing their pubs, schools and churches in exactly this way. Our message to other villages is simple: act early and organise quickly, before it’s too late.
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