The Flying Pig constitutes “less than 1% of the area of the whole site”

The developer who potentially wants to demolish the Flying Pig said in an interview on the radio that the existing Flying Pig site accounts for “less than 1% of the area of the whole site”. See link below (posting dated 08/07/2019 from 12min 30 sec). This begs the question: why knock it down if it’s only 1% of the site? Surely, any benefit accruing from such a small gain in land would be vastly outweighed by the reputational damage and public relations disaster that would accrue if the developer was seen to act in such a heartless fashion by knocking down a 180 year old pub loved by many which has now garnered 13,000 plus signatures for only 1% gain in land.

I would have thought that given it’s only 1%, the developer would be able to build round the Pig and market the whole development as a progressive environmentally cutting edge offices which has retained at its heart a truly authentic pub. Surely, he would gain more from doing this both monetarily and in terms of public relations. Please, please, please, do the right thing and keep the Pig and its long standing tenants and keep it trading whilst you build round it. If you did that you’d be better off all round.