A LANDMARK village pub that closed in 2016 could soon become a house.

An application to change the use of The Mandeville Arms, in Hardington Mandeville, from a pub to a dwelling has been submitted to South Somerset District Council.

It comes after previous applications to adapt the High Street building to create letting rooms and apartments went undetermined, due to an issue over problems evidencing phosphate neutrality affecting the district.

A plan to build two homes in the pub grounds has also not been adjudicated.

The application outlines how the owner of the pub has struggled to make it a viable business since buying the property in 2013.

“It had been closed as a public house for the three preceding years following the bankruptcy of the previous owners, during which time it had been marketed for sale but no one had purchased it,” it said.

It said the current owner has attempted to run the business himself, as well as after employing a professional tenant operator, but ‘neither option has been financially viable’.

“The public house has been closed ot the public since January 2016; a period of seven years,” it added.

“In the last 13 years, the premises have only been open as a public house foe a total of three years and at no time during that period were the operators able to make the business viable.”

They said remarketing the business would ‘serve no useful purpose’ due to the economic downturn, particularly in the hospitality sector.

Hardington Mandeville is already served by The Royal Oak pub, the application said, with other pubs and restaurants in nearby West Coker and East Coker.

It said the permanent closure of the Mandeville Arms ‘might help secure and safeguard the longer term viability of the Royal Oak’.

No exterior changes would be made to the build, the plan says, though changes would be made internally to convert the property into a single home.

For more details, and to comment on the plans, log on to southsomerset.gov.uk and search for application reference 23/00460/COU.