Golden Lion Community Pub and Hub

20/03/2026

✨ Big news for The Golden Lion! ✨

We’re delighted to share that the Asset of Community Value (ACV) status for The Golden Lion has officially been renewed by North Yorkshire County Council.

This is a huge milestone and important step in helping to protect the pub as a valued community space, and it keeps the ‘door open’ for us to bring it back into local hands.

A huge THANK YOU to the Parish Council for all their hard work in putting the application together and supporting us to get this over the line. We are incredibly grateful for your backing 🙌

That said, we want to remind everyone that we are still a community working group, and our mission continues. The pub has not yet been sold, and we are actively fundraising to make community ownership a reality.

Every bit of support and spreading the word makes a difference!

Let’s keep the momentum going and get this pub open again for our community 🦁💛

10/02/2026

Another great example of a community effort to save their local!

25/01/2026

🦁

The pub has been closed since September 2024

21/01/2026

🍻

🍺 There's no time for half measures.

Our local pubs need urgent help.

The government is doubling business rates for at least 5,000 pubs.

Rising costs - including the National Insurance hike - saw 47% of pubs scale back their opening hours in 2025.

At least one pub permanently closed for every day of last year, and we can't afford to lose any more.

123 pubs and eight breweries support 2,390 jobs across Wetherby & Easingwold.

We must support and cut taxes for them before it's too late.

20/01/2026

✨ We’re still welcoming new shareholders and now’s the time to get involved! ✨

No offers have been made on the Golden Lion yet, so we must keep going to put ourselves in the best position to buy.

Please keep sharing, spreading the word, and supporting the scheme. Together we can make the pub a true community asset. ⏳ Time is short, so let’s not miss this chance!

11/10/2025

Across rural Britain, we’ve watched vital village services disappear including the local shop, the post office, the bus service. The village pub is often the last to go. Once it’s gone, it’s rarely replaced. And when that happens, what’s left? A housing estate with no real heart. And we have a fair few new houses incoming…

Here in Helperby and Brafferton we still have a chance to protect ours.
But the warning signs are clear: pubs across the UK are closing at an alarming rate, and big pub groups, including Provenance Inns, are selling off or closing some of their loss-making sites. So anyone thinking, “we don’t need two pubs in the village”, might soon find we have none at all.

There is, however, a proven solution: community ownership.
Community-owned pubs have an incredible 99% survival rate, because they’re run for people, not just profit.

The Golden Lion is our chance to follow that model and to create a pub run by the community, for the community.

This is our moment. If we act now, the Golden Lion will thrive.
If we don’t, it may be lost forever.

👉 Buy shares
👉 Share the campaign
👉 Get the Golden Lion open again



Edit: please note we are not suggesting the Oak Tree is closing, just that we must continue to use our local assets or they could be at risk! So please continue to use The Oak Tree as it’s a wonderful village asset and it’s more important to use this now than ever as currently the only pub in the village left! 🌳

10/10/2025

What better reason to make sure we keep a pub in the village for sure! Thanks for sharing this little gem of information to us and our community! If you want to make sure we keep the Golden Lion in the village and keep our house prices up, then you still have time to get involved and buy shares now!

05/10/2025

🚨 OUR PUBS ARE DISAPPEARING. FAST🚨

Every week, eight pubs vanish from communities across England and Wales. That’s over 200 lost in just six months and soon, it could be one pub every single day.

This isn’t just about pints. Pubs are the heart of village life: where community groups, friends and family meet each other.

Meanwhile, publicans face impossible pressures:
• Profit per pint has collapsed (84p in 2009 → 12p now)
• Energy bills and rents are soaring
• VAT hits pubs at 20%

👉 The solution? Community ownership.
Community pubs have a survival rate of 99% because they exist for people, not just profit.

Now it’s our turn: the Golden Lion, Helperby, needs us.
✅ Buy shares today
✅ Share this with family & friends
✅ Spread the word – use it or lose it!

🍻 Let’s make sure our pub doesn’t become another statistic.

20/09/2025

Helperby Beer festival

20/09/2025

Rain jacket in one hand, pint in the other. That’s balance. 🍺🌧️

Looking forward to it🍻🦁