A LANDLADY has defended her decision to sell her pub to a school that intends to turn it into a sports hall.

Erica Walker, who runs the Salmon's Leap in Diglis, Worcester, admitted she and husband Bernie had approached the King's School, offering to sell up, but denied the school was "buying up Diglis".

King's has already bought the Alma Inn in Diglis.

The announcement that the Salmon's Leap was to be sold too, which we revealed in Wednesday's Worcester News, was crticised by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA).

The couple will move to Tenerife with their nine-year-old daughter Chloe at the end of July to run a property management business after running the pub for 11 years.

Mrs Walker, aged 37, said: It is not not true King's is trying to buy up Diglis. If we had not approached them, they would not have approached us."

Mrs Walker also said CAMRA members rarely drank in her pub, which had been snubbed by the group because it had not been listed in its beer guide since 2004.

She said: "They're not really taking a true interest in the pub, just jumping on the bandwagon."

The couple decided to sell up because they felt they needed a change and had also lost trade after the closure of nearby Royal Worcester Porcelain.

Mrs Walker said: "It is sad for us in one way because it's the end of an era."

Bill Ottaway, from CAMRA, denied the pub had been snubbed, saying it had only narrowly missed the cut-off for the beer guide and had been included in other CAMRA publications, including the Worcester City Centre Guide and 50 More Great Pub Crawls.

He said: "We have a problem with the pub being knocked down, not with the pub being sold. It's unfortunate. She seems to have a bee in her bonnet. I don't know why she feels upset. When she says that CAMRA has snubbed the pub, it's quite untrue."

There has been a pub on the site since 1900, when it was called The Fountain. The Salmon's Leap was once called the Potter's Wheel and is one of a dying number of free houses in Worcester.