A Grade II listed pub in the Green Belt which stopped trading over four years ago is to be converted into a house.

Although a planning inspector turned down two appeals for the proposed conversion of The Three Horseshoes in East Common, Harpenden, earlier this year, the district council has given the go ahead to a revised scheme which does not involve any extensions being built.

The original applications from Darren Goes and Patrick Stell for the conversion of the pub, built as a semi-detached pair of cottages in the 1700s, were turned down because two proposed extensions were felt to be disproportionate and inappropriate in the Green Belt.

The decision was upheld by a planning inspector who maintained that rather than improving the character and the appearance of the Harpenden conservation area, the proposal would detract from it.

But the new application is for change of use and does not propose any physical additions which overcame concerns about its Green Belt location.

The council did not have any objections to the principle of of a pub being converted to residential use, particularly as it had once been in residential use.

One objector, who did not wish to be named, said: “It was a great place to go for a pint and a meal in the summer or winter with a lovely beer garden next to the cricket pitch and the golf. It is a real shame that it is gone.”