A BRADFORD on Avon pub has been given a new lease of life and is set to reopen its doors on Wednesday after being closed for more than a year.

The George Inn at Woolley has been taken over by award-winning publicans Alex Venables and his partner Alison Ward-Baptiste, who spent 13 years developing the popular Tollgate Inn at Holt.

Revived as a community pub, the couple hope to offer punters everything from fine dining to a friendly bar including private meeting rooms, cookery courses and children’s playrooms.

Mr Venables, who won a coveted Michelin star when he was in charge of the kitchens at nearby Lucknam Park, will be heading up the chef’s pantry and hopes to entice locals with his culinary skills.

He added: “The food will be made using local produce done well with a little flare. We will also be having a daily changing menu and we will be using produce from the allotments up the road in Woolley.”

Upstairs in the Georgian pub will be a variety of rooms to allow for plans to hold a series of cookery demonstrations on fish and game.

“We want to offer something for everyone,” Miss Ward-Baptise added. “A pub like this should be the hub of the community. There’s a real village atmosphere here. Everyone in Woolley has been so supportive while we have been stripping and painting, demolishing and rebuilding, so we want to give something back.

“Like featuring the allotment produce on our menus, serving the street’s home-made cakes with our coffees and teas, or selling country garden plants in the courtyard.”