New hope for housing at pub site

The transformation of an eyesore former pub site in Wolverhampton was today getting under way after a digger moved on to level the site, more than two years after the building was demolished.

Metal fences have also been installed around the former Battle of Britain, which had been left as a pile of rubble after plans to bring life back to the site with a housing development failed to materialise.

The site has been labelled an eyesore by residents and councillors.

The pub closed in November 2005 and was left derelict until April last year, when bulldozers moved in to knock it down.

Despite once being a popular local, which was mentioned by celebrity chef Nigel Slater in his memoirs of growing up in Penn, the half-acre site on the corner of Birchwood Road and Sandringham Road became a constant target for vandals and changed hands several times.

Councillors demanded information about the proposed development when work failed to start. Today, hopes were high that work could get under way soon after a digger moved on to the site to level it out.

Albrighton's Tatton Hall Homes is behind the plans to transform the site with nine homes. Despite insisting work would be done "as soon as possible" once all quotations were received in 2008, the company has declined to be pinned down on dates.

Today ward councillor Paddy Bradley said: "Residents will be over the moon there is some activity. They have been extremely patient and now we are on the way. I'm grateful to the owners for developing it."

Tatton Hall Homes was today unavailable for comment.