PLANS to turn a derelict pub and former department store storage building into apartments have been submitted.

Developer Park Property has put forward a scheme for Grade II listed The Rising Sun pub, on Hythe Station Road, which has been empty for more than 25 years, and the Maponite buildings which has been used as a warehouse for the former Williams and Griffin store.

A total of 27 flats are included in the new blueprints, alongside three commercial units with one likely to be a coffee shop which would serve commuters using the nearby Hythe railway station.

The flats would include 22 one-bedroom apartments and five two-bedroom homes.

In a planning statement written on behalf of the developers, it confirms no visitor parking spaces would be available to be provided on site but there may be spaces on nearby streets.

The statement says: “These proposals will breathe life into buildings which do not lend themselves to a range of alternative uses, without these proposals these buildings would have an uncertain future.

“The scheme will restore a long neglected pub and provide lower cost housing in a sustainable location, making excellent use of previously developed land.

“Conversion of such properties will inevitably rely upon some modest compromises in order realise successful regeneration.

“These proposals are important, as they will see a historic building at risk restored, they involve a new use for locally listed buildings, they will enhance conservation area and deliver low cost accessible housing in a highly sustainable location, within a regeneration area.”

The pub was first opened in 1789 but has now been shut for more than two decades.

Save Britain’s Heritage and the Colchester and North-East Essex Building Preservation Trust campaigned for work to be carried out at the pub two years ago, but it has remained boarded up.

The developers have held constructive meetings with Colchester Council and community land Trust Hythe Forward in order to shape the plans.

A Colchester Council decision on the plans is expceted by February 16.