THE END of an era at a popular Andover pub is approaching after the landlady has confirmed that she has been forced to ring the bell and call last orders.

Vicki Harber, landlady at the Queen Charlotte Inn on London Road, told The Advertiser she is leaving behind the watering hole that “was a friend to me” after the management company increased her rent by an eye-watering 73 per cent to almost £60,000 per year.

She has already significantly invested in her business, but has now confirmed that she will shut shop on November 19.

“This pub was a friend to me,” she told this newspaper. “It’s heart wrenching and heart-breaking.

“Similarly, my family is also worried because we don’t know where we will be living in seven weeks’ time, and we are going to be homeless.”

Stonegate - the company that own the building - has put the Queen Charlotte Inn on the market at the new price. But as far as Vicki knows, nobody has taken it over yet, and the pub is to close down next month.

Having originally been told that her tenancy would be renewed when it expires in November, Vicki was informed in July of the planned price hike.

The company claims the hike in rent is to cover necessary refurbishments, but would not include the cost of fixings and fittings.

The community has rallied around the pub, with Cllr Iris Andersen telling the Advertiser The Queen Charlotte is a “lovely local pub where residents get together” and would be greatly missed.

You can read the full story in this week's paper. Also in this week’s edition:

  • A member of bank staff at Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has accused bosses of treating staff “like garbage” after they failed to pay a group of around ten employees.
  • An Andover tutor has been honoured after he won a prestigious education award.
  • A man who spat at a police officer in the Covid-19 pandemic has avoided immediate prison time. 
  • An Andover man has admitted the manslaughter of a Tesco employee who was killed in an attack outside the store he worked at earlier this summer.
  • The actions of an Andover father who sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl have been described by a judge as “selfish and totally unthinkable”.
  • An Andover mum is “over the moon” after a report by the Advertiser helped move her family out of a flat that has been affected by severe mould for over a year.
  •  A minister from Andover has shared his coming out story four years after he lost his job at a church.
  • A man accused of operating an illegal meat processing unit at a car wash in Ludgershall has entered guilty pleas to 39 food hygiene offences.
  • PLUS: Two pages of YOUR letters
  • PICTURES: Four-page pull-out featuring 24 'First Class' snaps 
  • A four-page puzzle special
  • Entertainment news
  • Sports news
  • And much, much more
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