IT’s still a case of glass half full for villagers battling to buy and reopen their long-closed pub – after they learnt the building’s owner has now applied for planning pemission to part-develop it.

Residents in Woodcroft ‘toasted’ what they thought was a major victory last autumn, when the Forest of Dean Council agreed to back a community Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) for the Rising Sun, to reopen it as a village hub, shop and pub.

But they say that is now on hold after owners Worthy Developments submitted a new plan to build two flats as part of a top floor extension and let the refurbised ground floor area as a bar.

The Chepstow-based business has just secured planning permission to build 16 homes on the site of Caldicot’s White Hart pub, more than five years after the scheme was first submitted to Monmouthshire planners.

But the extraordinary saga over the Rising Sun dates back even further, to 2011 when the pub closed and was later sold.

When Worthy Developments applied to convert it into housing, villagers launched a campaign to have the Victorian premises declared a community asset, blocking its change of use and making them the preferred bidder in any sale.

Share pledges and donations totalling more than £230,000 have been raised to buy the dilapidated and overgrown property, says the Save Our Sun (SOS) group, and the winning line looked in sight last November when councillors instructed officers to prepare a CPO.

But campaigners say a new plan has now been submitted, which the council says must be decided first.

“There’s good news and frustrating news,” said SOS chairwoman Michelle Hayes. “The good news is that we have successfully had the pub re-listed as an Asset of Community Value for another five years, which is is very helpful in our fight to save the pub.

“But only the council can make a compulsory purchase order, and they will not do this while Worthy have a planning application in, as their application pretends to bring the pub back to the community, which is the basis for the CPO, and so the council won’t use these powers until the planning is decided.

“We are so frustrated about this.”

She claimed that the rentals being quoted for a refurbished bar area were “not viable.”

“We could not afford to take this on and it is highly unlikely anyone else would do so, and therefore it would be a short step from there to turn the pub into housing,” she said.

“We need to fight planning and, if we win, then the CPO can proceed and we stand a good chance of getting our pub back.”

SOS has hired a specialist pub planning consultant to fight the case, and has called on supporters to make their objections known to Forest planners about the proposed scheme when it is validated and placed on the council’s online planning portal.

She urged villagers: “I know we are all fatigued and sick of the eyesore, but let’s keep fighting and please feel free to complain to the FoD council about the state of the pub, as they do have powers to force the owners to make repairs.

“Keep the faith, there are four other pubs in the UK going through CPO at the moment.”

After the planning inspector rejected an appeal over the original plan to convert it into housing, the pub was put back on the market in 2017, but SOS attempts to buy it from the owner was rebuffed.

The UK’s longest running community-run pub – the Beauchamp Arms – is in Dymock and was bought by villagers 22 years ago.