A proposal to sweep away a rural pub to make way for five new homes is back on the table after being withdrawn last year.

Under the plans The Decoy Tavern in Beccles Road, Fritton, will be bulldozed to make way for five, two-bedroom homes with access from New Road.

A previous bid drew a raft of objections with one near neighbour Mark Foxhall leading a community takeover bid. He said he would be objecting again, but had understood another proposal that would have delivered a village shop was well advanced.

Papers in support of the bid say the pub is small and unviable with room for around 20 people, and that what was once a nice-looking building is now an "ugly mess" with little of the original watering hole remaining.

They add: "No one has come forward to purchase it as a community asset and it is not on the list of community assets and neither has any application been made.

"The building, as is now, has lost any vernacular character that it may have had with its previous form and would require substantive re-building.

"To keep the building and develop the rest of the site would mean building one or two much larger properties of which there are many already in the village.

"This seeks to develop a different type of housing being two-bedrooms which is an objective of the local plan.

"The benefits of the scheme considerably outweigh the loss of what was originally a nice building but over time has suffered several carbuncles of extensions that have left what is a rather ugly mess of a building.

"The original building has so many holes in it that trying to preserve it would effectively be rebuilding it."

The statement goes on to say that given the lack of objection from highways and the benefit in terms of supplying smaller homes the application should be approved.

Borough councillor Adrian Myers said a bid to have it listed as an asset of community value was in the pipeline. While the status did not protect the building, it would, if successful allow for "breathing space" as the merits of the bid were debated.

To view the plans visit Great Yarmouth Borough Council's planning portal quoting reference 06/22/0495/F.