Petition to save The Humber Stone pub in Leicester

The Humber Stone pub in the Leicester suburb of Humberstone closed early in 2020 because of the Covid pandemic and has never reopened. Nor has there been any news about its future.

Now it has been put up for auction, with the billing referring to it as "a former public house and restaurant" and noting the site's "potential for residential development".

In response, some residents have opened a petition on change.org calling on Leicester City Council not to grant any planning permission that would allow the demolition of The Humber Stone

The accompanying notes say:

This is an absolute disgrace and shows there is a plot to destroy local communities that unite though there local pubs. ...

This pub makes Humberstone a village and to see it go will upset a lot of residents.

Having explored this part of Leicester I agree that it does has that effect on Humberstone, even if it is an unlovely modern building,

The Humber Stone pub, incidentally, takes its name from a mysterious standing stone to be found nearby.

When I visited it I came across this story on This Was Leicestershire:

“Boy drew creature that stood beside his bed” was a Leicester Mercury headline as recently as 1980, when a 10-year-old boy, living close to the Humber Stone, had constant “visits” from a devilish entity. It was, apparently, a creature with a goat’s head and long curving horns, a man’s body and cloven hoofs. After drawing it at school, the boy’s teacher asked what it was. “I don’t know, miss”, he said. “It’s the thing I sometimes see at the end of my bed”.