Villagers in Ystrad Aeron, near Felinfach, Ceredigion, have hit their fundraising target to buy their local pub, the Vale of Aeron, once a favoured haunt of poet Dylan Thomas.
The campaigners set a target of £330,000 – and on the first day of their share offer on November they got off to a flying start by to raising £41,703.
Less than two months later the group – Ymgyrch Tafarn Dyffryn Aeron / Vale of Aeron Campaign – beat the target and now have enough money to buy the pub.
They said: “A huge thank you to all who have contributed and supported the campaign. We will publishing the exact amount raised during next week, and contacting investors in the new year.”
The pub is popular with tourists on the Dylan Thomas trail. It is said the poet and his wife Caitlyn liked to walk across the fields from their home at Plas y Gelli to the pub.
Locals set up the campaign to save the pub as a community-run co-op when it closed after its lease expired.
Whoever buys shares becomes a member of the society and will have a say in how it runs.
Each member has one vote, no matter how many shares they buy. Shares were sold for £1, with a minimum shareholding of £200 and a maximum of £30,000.
