A SOUTHAMPTON pub will be knocked down and replaced with houses.

Work to demolish the Bush Inn in Maybush will begin in March.

It will eventually be replaced by a nine-home affordable housing development.

Once a thriving watering hole, the pub in Wimpson Lane closed its doors for the last time in 2010.

Aster Homes applied to Southampton City Council last year to knock it down and they have now been given the green light.

The plans are for six houses – three of which will have two bedrooms and three of which will have three bedrooms – and a block of three, two-bedroom flats.

All of the properties will be affordable housing, which will be managed by Aster Communities in cooperation with the city council.

Work is due to begin on the site in March, and is expected to be completed in about a year.

Aster Homes’ regional development director Anna Kear said: “We’re delighted to be working with Southampton City Council on this exciting project which will breathe new life into a site that’s been disused for some time.

“We have considerable experience of delivering high-quality new affordable homes all over the city.

We’re very pleased to be bringing all that expertise to this scheme and are looking forward to starting work.”

One of the area’s Labour ward councillors, Andrew Pope, said: “Having looked at the plans, they are all going to be social housing which is important. However I am concerned about losing pubs and community venues – we need to have them and yet we are rapidly losing them.

“I’m disappointed that we are losing another pub.”