LOCAL members of real ale group CAMRA will be looking closely at new plans which would mean the permanent loss of a pub in Malvern.

A development company has applied to Malvern Hills District Council to convert the Vaults at Link Top into housing.

The Vaults, at 102 Worcester Road, has been closed since January, when landlord Karl Crangle shut the business, claiming he had been made a scapegoat for problems with drinking and anti-social behaviour in the area.

Goldhall Developments Ltd has applied to convert the pub area into a two-bedroom apartment. There is already planning permission, issued in 2006 and renewed in 2010, to build four apartments in the pub's garden.

In a statement accompanying the application, David Hill of Goldhall Developments says: "The property has not traded as a normal public house for several years, but was trading as a nightclub.

"We submit that use as a residential building will improve the amenity of the area, reduce noise and inconvenience, reduce police workload, improve neighbourhood relations, improve property values in the immediate vicinity and be a general improvement to Link Top."

This week Mark Haslam of CAMRA said: "We will be taking a close look at this, in the light of the loss of other pubs in the Malvern area."

The former Morgan pub, only a couple of hundred yards away, is currently undergoing conversion after being granted planning permission in 2009, which was fought by CAMRA. More recently, the Lamb in West Malvern was sold off by Punch Pubs and its future is currently uncertain.

"Recently we looked at Ledbury, Ross, Upton and Leominster, and Malvern has a worse ratios of pubs to population than any of them," said Mr Haslam. "That makes it doubly important to scrutinise carefully the loss of any of them."