Pub is the Hub helps Welsh pub build a playground

The back garden of a Denbighshire pub has been turned into a £7,500 children's playground with Pub is the Hub funding.

It was licensee Anna Beveridge's idea, as part of a move to restore the Salusbury Arms in Tremeirchion, and make it a focal point in the community. She has owned and run the pub for nine months.

"I believe that if I don't base the pub on families, then it is not going to work," said Beveridge, who sees the playground as a "joint venture" between the pub and the community.

"Pubs are not just drinking holes anymore, they are places where families come for meals and where they can come with their children, especially for a pub like this which is in the middle of a community."

The playground has been a hit in the village, which only has one other at the local school.

"It's an asset for the village," said local mother Helen Williams. "It can be very difficult when you have young kids to find places to go, but the playground helps bring the community together.

"It has given us a reason to come."

Pub is the Hub is a rescue plan to revitalise rural pubs. Rural development agency Cadwyn Clwyd has been running the scheme in Wales since 2008 and has so far helped eight pubs.

The three-year £175,000 Denbighshire project is part of a £5.3m package which Cadwyn Clwyd secured from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development through the Welsh Assembly Government's Rural Development Plan.

It provided 75% of the cost of putting up the new playground at the Salusbury Arms.