Residents in Queens Park are taking no chances with a favoured local pub which was sold earlier this year.

Queens Park Residents Association (QPRA) have made an application to Brent Council to have The Corrib Rest pub in Salusbury Road, listed as an asset of community value (ACV), to protect it from any future development plans.

The former watering hole was bought by Ashcroft Limited earlier this year, and has been empty since February 1 with a sign on the door saying “closed for refurbishment” but residents say it has instead become a “pop-up dumping ground”.

Janis Denselow, chair of QPRA, who made the application last week, said she was alerted by a planning application from Ashcroft wishing to know if the pub had an ACV status.

The group were also moved by the destruction of the Carlton Tavern, in Carlton Vale, Maida Vale, demolished by its owners CLTX.

She said: “We are worried about The Corrib Rest. We want to be involved in any decision to change its use. All these rumours have been going around saying it’s going to be a supermarket, a betting shop, it’s going to be a block of flats.

Maybe this will just give us time to have a role in the planning because it is a community resource and the only ungentrified ordinary pub in the area.”

She added: “I won’t deny the application is linked to the general pressure on pubs, linked to what happened to the Carlton.”

The Corrib Rest forms part of a larger building occupying all the land on Salusbury Road between Hopefield Avenue and Windermere Avenue.

The pub was bought by the Brent Irish Cultural and Community Association in 1983 using a grant from the Greater London Council.

A bar was set up and a wide range of classes took place there including Irish music and dancing. Christenings, weddings and wakes have all taken place there.

Cllr James Denselow, representing Queens Park, said: “I’d like to congratulate all of those local residents who’ve come together to call on the Corrib Rest to be listed as an asset of community value. Over 1,000 people have joined the campaign on Facebook and the Council has received an official nomination from QPARA that it is now considering. Pubs are closing in large numbers across the country but if there is enough local support the Council can help protect against that from happening”.

No development can take place at the Corrib Rest pub until the nomination has been determined by the council, a process that takes two months.

To join the campaign visit Save the Corrib Rest NW6 on social networking site Facebook.