Community pub has 600 owner-members
Members and regulars celebrate together at The New Clarence in Hull(Image: hullcommunitypub.com)
Two years ago The New Clarence was boarded up and left for dead. Since reopening in September 2025, the Hull pub has traded strongly, been named CAMRA’s national Pub Saving Champion for 2025, and proved that community ownership can work.
On Tuesday, September 1, The New Clarence is throwing open its doors from 6.30pm to celebrate its first birthday since reopening – and everyone’s invited. The pub, in Charles Street, was bought and is run by 600 local owners who make up Hull Community Pub Society.
The Society is now raising the final £39,000 needed to create a brand-new, fully accessible function space in the city centre, with its crowdfunder running until Sunday, September 6. Everyone is welcome to the birthday celebrations – members, regulars, and anyone curious to see what a community-owned, award-winning pub looks like a year on from reopening.
It will be a chance to meet the volunteers and owners behind the rescue, see the space that is already thriving, and hear what is next for the building. Alongside the celebrations, the Society is inviting members of the public to become owners of their local pub by buying shares, from £100, to help complete the renovation of the upstairs function room.
The appeal has already raised £60,900 towards its £100,000 target, boosted by £25,000 of match-funding from the Community Shares Booster Fund. Simon Berry, chairperson of Hull Community Pub Society, said: “Two years ago this pub was boarded up and looked like it might be lost for good.
“We reopened in September 2025, and a year on it’s thriving — run by the people who use it, with 600 of us now owning a share of it. We’ve already raised £60,900 towards finishing the function room.
“This next stage is what turns The New Clarence from a great local into somewhere the whole city can use, for weddings, gigs, meetings, whatever Hull needs. We couldn’t have got this far without our members and the co-operative movement backing us, and we’re asking people to help us get over the line.”
To find out more or to invest, you can visit crowdfunder.co.uk/p/raise-the-roof-at-the-new-clarence. In January 2026, The New Clarence and the Hull Community Pub Society won CAMRA’s national Pub Saving Award, recognising the group’s community-led campaign to save the pub.
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