A FIVE-YEAR saga over the future of a village pub could finally be brought to an end with councillors set to decide again on a controversial housing plan.

The former Pheasant Inn in Welland near Malvern, which has been empty for 12 years, could soon be converted into flats alongside a new extension housing a restaurant and café, bar and function room.

Officers have recommended the application is approved when Malvern Hills District Council’s planning committee meets on November 16.

The application, which was put forward more than a year ago, would see an existing extension demolished to make way for the new function room with the former pub converted into three two-bed flats alongside another new extension containing two two-bed flats.

Council planners said the application would “preserve the building and support a continued presence of a public house.”

Concerns have been raised, by both villagers in Welland and representatives from the Malvern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), that the plan was focusing on building houses rather than re-opening a long-lost village pub.

A total of 25 objections were made against the plan during consultation with many residents saying the village needed a “smart and well-cared-for” pub rather than what had been proposed.

“This proposal has nothing to do with bringing back a community pub into Welland and everything to do with sneakily backdooring more flats and houses onto the site,” one objection said.

Welland Parish Council welcomed the promise that the new extension would be designated as a ‘pub’ but wanted an assurance it would be built before any of the new housing was sold.

A plan to convert the vacant building into homes and reopen the pub inside a new extension was controversially rejected by Malvern councillors in 2019.

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The pub has been vacant since 2010 and has been the subject of numerous planning applications.

Councillors approved plans to build 14 homes on some of the land off the village’s Drake Street in 2017 – proposals that included the retention of the pub – which have now been built.

Villagers also expressed an interest in buying the pub to bring it back into community use in 2017.

MHDC’s southern area planning committee meets in Malvern on November 16.