A community group’s plan to buy a village pub and run it as a community enterprise is in danger of failing as only £50,000 has been raised so far.

The Case Is Altered in Bentley has been empty since March and has been put on the market by owners Punch Taverns with an asking price of £240,000.

Bentley Community Pub Ltd, the working group set up to save the pub, successfully had the pub listed as an asset of community value and a moratorium was put in place meaning Punch Taverns cannot sell it to anyone for six months.

The community organisation opened up its share offer a fortnight ago with the aim of raising £350,000 but only £50,000 has been pledged so far.

David Westley, who set up the working group, said: “We launched the share offer two weeks ago and still have four weeks to run.

“We have raised around £50,000 so far but it’s a long way off our target.

“We have a lot more to raise in the next few weeks and whether we are going to manage it, I just don’t know but these things have a tendency to build up in the last couple of weeks.”

The group is hoping to follow in the footsteps of The Sorrel Horse in Shottisham and own the village pub.

The group was set up after a meeting about the village’s potential to buy the pub was held earlier this year.

A questionnaire was then distributed to every household in Bentley to gauge the level of support for the proposal as well as asking what services people would like to see before the decision was made to get the pub listed as an asset of community value.

Mr Westley added: “We just want people to buy shares because if we don’t raise at least our minimum amount by the end of November, we won’t be putting in an offer.

“Who knows what will happen to it then.

“This is a one-off opportunity and it probably won’t happen again.

“If people want to save the pub, they need to dig deep in their pockets and buy some shares.”

The shares are open to everyone in the community as well as supporters from outside the village. Shares are set at a minimum of £250 and a maximum of £20,000 per person and offers will run until November 30.

Anyone interested should email savethecase.bentley@gmail.com or visit www.thecasepubbentley.co.uk or the Save The Case Bentley Facebook page or follow @savethecase on Twitter for details.