Freehold pub is quiz top prize

Yet another pub has been named as the top prize in a quiz for the price of a £20 ticket.Licensee Steve Goymer is launching an online competition for...

Yet another pub has been named as the top prize in a quiz for the price of a £20 ticket.

Licensee Steve Goymer is launching an online competition for his pub and hopes to sell 30,000 tickets before June.

To be in with a chance of winning each entrant has to answer a series of questions on the website www.winapubinwales.co.uk and submit it online.

The victor will be announced in June and given the keys to freehold pub, the Plash Inn in Llanfallteg, Wales worth £350,000.

"We're hoping someone will get it and keep the pub alive. Pubs are disappearing pretty fast at the minute," said Steve.

"We thought if we could get somebody here who doesn't have to pay a mortgage, it would be a definite headstart for them. Plus I live locally and I still want to drink here."

He added that family reasons led to the decision to sell the pub last April after trying to look after his two year-old son Ioan, who has down syndrome, and running the pub proved too much.

"We had not been able to focus on the pub, which is unfair on the locals, unfair on the pub and ultimately unfair on Ioan."

But after the pub failed to sell after seven months, Steve decided to look into launching a competition after hearing of a number of house owners attempting to raffle their property.

However, he warned any licensees thinking of attempting a similar route to shift their pub that the process is tedious and costly.

"It took us six months to get here," he said. "It was an awful lot of work and we had to tick a lot of boxes legally. The fees are quite scary too," he said.