THE campaign to launch York's second community pub was aiming to get off to a flying start last night, as villagers were invited to hear about the plans.

The Bay Horse in Murton could follow in the footsteps of the Golden Ball in Bishophill and go into community ownership - if enough people come forward to take on shares in the pub.

Last night people in the village were invited to a first look at the business plan, and organisers were hoping that support from Murton would help get the campaign off to a flying start.

James Carter, who is part of the Friends of the Bay Horse group aiming to save the pub from closure, said: "We want to show people in the village all the work we are doing. Soon we are aiming to send a brochure about our business plan to every household in the area, but we wanted to show it to the people of Murton first."

The Bay Horse is listed as an asset of community value, meaning that locals now have until September to put together a bid to buy the pub before owners Enterprise Inns can sell it to anyone else.

The campaign group already have a pledge of £100,000 from The Plunkett Foundation - a group which helps co-operatives and community ventures in rural areas.

On top of that, they are aiming to raise £290,000 from a community share offer, to have a big enough fund to make an offer for the pub and invest to get it bringing in the trade it needs to be successful.

James said they gave a number of plans to boost takings at the pub - besides attracting the people who used to make it their regular watering hole back through the door.

"The business plan has a bunch of what we hope are cheap initiatives to make a start on increasing the business.

"We get a lot of cyclists coming past every weekend, Murton is on a very popular cycling route, but not many stop so we think there's a lot of day time trade we are missing out on.

"There's also hundreds of people coming to Murton auction centre every week, and families coming to Murton park museum in the summer."