WORK to re-open a pub left empty for 13 years alongside new housing looks set to start.

Malvern Hills District Council’s planning committee gave the green light to the plan for the Pheasant Inn in Welland near Malvern, which has been empty since 2010, to be converted into flats alongside a new extension housing a restaurant, café, bar and function room.

The plans have now been signed off by the council, meaning the work can finally start.

The application was approved by Malvern Hills District Council’s planning committee at a meeting in November last year despite some concerns about the design of the building and the lack of parking.

Various plans to re-open the pub have been put forward and rejected over the years with the most up-to-date version of the controversial work first proposed in 2021.

It will 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.

Concerns had 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 with many residents saying the village needed a “smart and well-cared-for” pub rather than what had been proposed.

At the planning meeting last year, Cllr Viv Nelson, chair of Little Malvern and Welland Parish Council, said she was “delighted” by the plan but had some reservations.

 “The village not only wants a pub but needs a pub,” she said.

Cllr Nelson said more car parking spaces would be needed and was also not thrilled by the design of the pub, saying that she hoped the white building would be returned to its former glory.  

Cllr Mick Davies, who represents Welland on MHDC, said the plan was “different” from what was rejected almost three years ago and was confident the move would “create an asset of real community value” and bring “much-needed” homes.

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.

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 looked at buying the pub in 2017.