Plans to give a vacant pub a new lease of life as a restaurant and flats have been submitted to council development chiefs.

South Tyneside Council’s planning department has received an application for The Kelly public house, off Hedgeley Road, in the Hebburn area.

The pub site was put on the property market last year following it closure earlier in 2023 and property agents, in the online listing, suggested potential new uses.

New plans from I and A Commercial Properties Ltd aim to change the use of the building’s ground floor from a “public house to café/restaurant”.

Plans also include “alterations and extensions” to the building’s first and second floors to create residential accommodation.

Proposals for the building’s first floor include a five-bedroom house in multiple occupation (HMO) including individual bedrooms with a shared living and kitchen area.

Plans for the first floor also include a one-bedroom flat, and two two-bedroom flats, along with stairs up to another two-bedroom flat on the top floor.

If approved, the residential part of the development would see the pub’s upper floors transformed into a five-bedroom HMO, one one-bedroom flat and three two-bedroom flats.

Each self-contained flat, or non-HMO flat, will include living and kitchen areas and storage space.

Meanwhile, indicative floor plans for the building’s ground floor show how the new restaurant/café use would operate.

This includes a large seating area and several servery spaces, including a counter and ‘dessert display’.

Other spaces across the ground floor include a staff room, office and cold room, kitchen, staff and customer toilets and an entrance to the flats above.

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A decision on the planning application will be made once a period of council consultation has concluded.

Comments can be made on the plans, via South Tyneside Council’s planning portal website, until September 25, 2024.

For more information on the plan or to track its progress, visit the council’s planning portal website and search reference:  ST/0516/24/FUL