THE latest closure of the Five Lamps pub in Duffield Road is not good news but it is, sadly, not entirely surprising.

What was surprising was when Everards, a brewery with a terrific reputation for good judgment, allowed the pub to be reopened in the style that it was after its £200,000 revamp recently.

I did venture in, once. And while a couple of the familiar and tasty Everards brews were to be found on the bar, a "chic" and softly-lit café-bar atmosphere never looked likely to hit the spot.

Our food writer Secret Service's review was fairly favourable but noted there was "room for improvement".

Going in purely for a lunchtime drink, I simply didn't feel like I was in a pub.

Before this transformation, much has been made of the Five Lamps' former reputation as a music pub "that helped launch the career of James Morrison".

Fair enough, but it wasn't the only venue in town making such a claim about the obviously industrious Mr Morrison. Long before that, as the St Helen's Inn, it was a cracking good community pub, comfortable and sociable, and many of us refuse to believe that such pubs have had their day, especially when they are situated in heavily-populated residential areas, as this one is.

So the news that Everards is now looking to market the Five Lamps as a cask ale pub and considering a tie-up with a local brewery is to be welcomed. Arguably, it is the way it should have gone last time around.

I believe the scope is there for another pub to succeed in the area. The nearby Mason's Arms – I think they latterly called it the Strawberry Tree or some such – has closed but, not much further in the other direction, the Horse & Groom, in Elms Street, is proving that a traditional pub with the accent on cask ale can succeed.

With the quirky, historic Seven Stars serving a variety of beers and the perennially successful Flowerpot only a few more steps on into town, it strikes me that the Five Lamps could yet form part of a rather good pub crawl for drinkers picking their way through the workings of the inner ring road extension as they head into the city from that end.