A FOOTBALL team which frequently uses a pub's function room is backing The Press' campaign to give people a say on the future of their locals.

Our Be Vocal For Your Local campaign is calling on City of York Council and the Government to adapt planning laws to give people a chance to challenge decisions to alter their locals.

The Punch Bowl at the top of The Groves is one of three city pubs likely to become a supermarket if companies get their own way and, as it stands, they do not have to apply for planning permission to do this.

The University of York St John’s football team says they would have to hire transport to travel further afield because the pub has a function room – a luxury other pubs in the vicinity do not boast.

Gaz Sowerby, 21, team club captain, said: "The Punch Bowl is incredibly convenient for us.

"We would be quite stuck without it because there's not many places in York where 50 males can turn up, and there are not that many function rooms in the city centre where we can go with short notice.

"The Students' Union is an incredibly hard place to book and everyone at university is fighting for it, so we can only go in there every so often.

"When you tell people you want to use somewhere for 40 or 50 people from the football team they say 'no' straight away and don't even entertain the thought."

Vice captain Joe Wharton, 20, added: "We use the function room upstairs but there's nowhere else we could do this if it was to go.

"We meet once a month and have 40 people in there. There's nowhere else we could go that's close by and we would have to travel but we don't have transport to do it.

"We've been using it since before I started at uni, and we used go to other places, but they have closed down now and we are reliant on it."

Meanwhile, Paul Giller, 66, who is registered blind, is a regular at The Punch Bowl, and says he would be at a loss if it closed.

It is one of the few pubs without a step into the premises, making it very accessible, he said.

Backing The Press' campaign, he said: "I don't think it's right they should be able to just close a pub so it can become a supermarket. It's not on.

"I'm not sure what I would do without it. I wouldn't go to one of the neighbouring pubs.

"There are no steps into it and I can get in and out without any problems.

"There's not another pub around like The Punch Bowl. It has a function room and is on its own with what it has."

Statistics provided by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) suggested a pub annually puts £80,000 into its local economy.

However, 31 pubs close every week nationally and two pubs have been converted to supermarkets every week since 2012.

Mr Giller added: "I'm 66 and I love to go to the "Old English" pubs but they are dwindling and it looks like companies are trying to do away with them.

"There's more than enough little supermarkets around York and The Punch Bowl is one where there are that many around it, another isn't needed."