PROTESTS are beginning over plans to turn the Spa Inn into housing.
A handful of letters objecting to the loss of the pub in Oldends Lane, Stonehouse, have already landed on the desks of Stroud District Council planners.
A resident is threatening to launch a petition to try to save the pretty Cotswold stone inn and Stonehouse mayor Coun Chris Brine has decried the loss of the community facility.
But specialist surveyor and licensed properties' valuer John Williams said: "The outlook for improving trade at The Spa is bleak."
Mr Williams, employed by the Spa's owner Wadworths, said: "Its location in the middle of a large industrial/distribution estate is extremely poor.
"At one time this business might have expected to draw lunchtime and early evening custom from those working on the estate."
Mr Williams said, nowadays, staff were not permitted to drink at lunchtime and there was no realistic prospect of attracting customers from a wider area.
"The Spa will never be a destination house," he said.
Wadworths is proposing to turn The Spa into a house and build two pairs of semis in the grounds.
But Coun Brine said he was "very concerned" about losing another pub in Stonehouse.
And protestor Jeffery Smith, from nearby Festival Road, said there would be few pubs left for a growing Stonehouse population.
"I will be raising a petition against this," Mr Smith said.
Residents Peter Mackie and R Charlton have also objected.
