PUBLICANS in Richmond have vowed to fight plans by a national pub chain to open in the town centre.

J D Wetherspoons has applied for planning permission to convert the post office building in Queen's Road into a pub and beer garden.

But landlords say that if the plans are accepted, they could call time on some town centre pubs.

At a meeting of 16 licensees held at the Fleece on Monday, worried publicans agreed to write to their MP, Mr William Hague, to ask for his support. They are also to lobby district councillors and justices of the peace.

Mr Steve Moss, landlord at the Turf hotel, urged as many licensees as possible to attend a site visit by district councillors on Thursday and the council planning meeting at Swale House on February 27.

He said: "We've got to turn up in numbers at these two meetings and let them know our feelings. This is the only way they will understand; we've all got to be there."

The landlords were backed by their ward councillor, Coun Alison Appleton, who said she would object to any licence application and would lobby colleagues on the planning committee.

The publicans told police representatives at the meeting that they feared the prospect of increased disorder.

Under new laws soon to introduced, police called to deal with trouble will be able to close pubs down for 24 hours.

Mrs Nita Galvin, landlady at the Town Hall hotel, said: "Wetherspoons has a policy of no entertainment, so people will be coming out of there at five or six o'clock then coming to our pubs looking for entertainment. We are concerned about them getting tanked up on cheap beer then coming to us and causing trouble."

Mr Moss said many people in Richmond were unaware of the plans to completely take over the post office.

He added: "Nobody knows this is going on; all the locals think that their post office is still going to be there, but they have not seen the plans. The post office counter is going."

Mrs Galvin added: "They will have no problem relocating the post office if this proposal goes through. They can put it in one of the pubs that will close; there will be enough of them to choose from."

Planning permission was granted for a family pub in the old sorting office in 1999 but the plans fell through. Drawings for this latest application show the whole building being taken over.

Mr Moss said he would have no objection to a family pub with facilities for children, but felt a Wetherspoons was inappropriate for the town.

He said: "If it was a family pub, which Richmond has not got, then fine; but it is not. A place like this will just destroy this side of the town."

A spokesman for Wetherspoons told the D&S Times this week: "I don't think the Richmond licensees' argument stands up. Yes we do serve drinks at competitive prices, but that does not in any way equal trouble.

"We do want to open a pub in Richmond on that site, but it is still a way off. We still have to agree the purchase of the property and get planning permission and a licence."

The spokesman added that Wetherspoons was hoping to open 100 new pubs this year and the same number in the coming years.

"We are looking for towns with a mixture of residents, business people and tourists," he said. "Richmond is a good town and we think our style of pub would be good for Richmond.