WORK to turn a former Somerset pub into new council houses will be getting under way before Christmas.

Somerset West and Taunton Council announced in 2020 that they had plans to demolish The Oxford Inn on Roman Road and replace it with “11 low-cost flats”.

The council’s planning committee approved revised proposals to deliver eight homes, rather than the original 11, on the derelict site back in November 2022.

The delivery of the scheme since this date has been delayed by the coronavirus pandemic and the ongoing phosphates crisis, with housing developments needing to secure additional mitigation to prevent damage to the Somerset Levels and Moors.

Somerset Council (which replaced the district council in April 2023) has now announced the appointment of a contractor to carry out the work – and has confirmed the work will get under way in the autumn.

An artist's impression of new homes on the Oxford Inn site.An artist's impression of new homes on the Oxford Inn site. (Image: Somerset Council)

Each of the new one- and two-bedroom flats will be built as zero carbon housing, using similar methods to the council houses being delivered at the Rainbow Way site in Minehead or within the North Taunton Woolaway regeneration programme.

The cost of the project has been estimated at just under £2.3m, including contingencies.

Around half of the cost of the project will be met using right to buy receipts (i.e. the sale of existing council houses), with the other half coming from borrowing – which was agreed within the council’s capital programme in February.

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A spokesman said: “The Oxford Inn scheme has been revised and will now deliver eight new zero carbon homes to be let at an affordable rent.

“While the number of homes has been reduced by three [from the original plans], two of the flats have increased in size from one bedroom to two.

“The scheme is expected to ‘start on site’ in October and complete in December 2025.”

The council is expected to name its chosen contractor once the statutory ‘standstill period’ has concluded later in the summer.