A CAMPAIGNING MP will lament the loss of pubs in York when he sings in a band's debut gig at a city pub next week.

Greg Mulholland, a former York student and barman who now chairs the all-party parliamentary Save the Pub Group, sings in a new Yorkshire-based five piece acoustic folk band called Summercross.

The band will play its first gig at the Rook and Gaskill in Lawrence Street on Monday, said a band spokesman.

"It's a welcome return to York for Greg, who used to play in York bands and played at Fibbers and the erstwhile Spotted Cow with Mind the Gap and Evil Mary's Bandwagon, who won Gig Central Demo of the Year in 1994," he said.

"The gig, appropriately enough, will be the first time the song about the threat to the pub, 'Last of England', will be played.

"The song includes references to the much lamented John Bull and the Locomotive, where Greg worked a few shifts when a student. Summercross plan to release this as a single later this year."

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The spokesman added that Summercross provided a new brand of contemporary folk music with strong songs, powerful harmonies, haunting tunes and sing-along choruses.

"Playing all original music, many of the songs are about local history, others reflections of life and emotions."

Mr Mulholland, the Leeds North West MP who is a singer-songwriter, praised the Volunteer Arms in Holgate as an example of the way forward for pubs when he visited York last year.

The pub came within a whisker of closure and demolition to make way for housing in 2011 until planners refused permission to the then owners, Punch Taverns, and it was bought by Paul Crossman and business partner Jon Farrow.

Mr Mulholland said then that the pub was a classic example of both the problems and the opportunities for British pubs.