This is the best summary I could come up with:
A fire which ripped through a landmark pub days before it was unexpectedly demolished is being treated as arson, police say.
The Crooked House, near Dudley in the Black Country, caught fire on Saturday night and was then bulldozed on Monday, prompting anger from local residents.
The pub, once Britain’s “wonkiest”, was sold by Marston’s last month.
Staffordshire Police said on Wednesday investigations were continuing but the blaze was being treated as suspicious.
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I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I’m not sure why I am so invested in this story, but I’d love to see some consequences for this cultural vandalism.
I’m hooked! I hope it continues to be reported on in the national news so I don’t have to occasionally trawl local news for updates sporadically.
I didn’t realise it had been bulldozed. That’s incredibly suspicious! They should be made to rebuild it - I think the West Midlands mayor suggested this too!
There have been cases where pubs have been destroyed without permission and the courts have ordered them to be rebuilt brick by brick.
Here are a couple of examples from the past two years that I could remember:
Good. Any word on the “private buyer”?
Oh shit. Well that re-ignites my conspiracy mindedness. When I saw that it was an isolated road near a quarry I thought that maybe carelessness could have explained the blocked road. (“meh - fix the mess later. no one will be bothered”)
But if the quarry owner almost certainly blocked the road and is also the new owner? Yikes.
indeed, the street had been blocked off by piles of dirt so firefighters couldn’t reach the blaze
