The new owners of a fire-ravaged pub in east Suffolk are expected to submit plans for its redevelopment in the near future.

At a meeting on Monday Wickham Market Parish Council reported encouraging progress over the future of The George Inn, which was devastated by fire in April 2013.

Parish council chairman Dick Jenkinson said he still did not know who had bought the pub at auction last October, but understood they had been in talks with Suffolk Coastal District Council.

“We are expecting a new planning application from the owners of The George Inn,” he said.

“This is great news. We were starting to fear that we would not hear of a planning application until it was falling down.”

The delay in progress is thought to be down to a misunderstanding over the nature of the pub’s deeds, which Mr Jenkinson said had now been resolved.

“I don’t know exactly what the plans are, but there’s greater cause for optimism than gloom,” he said.

“I’m certainly more hopeful than I was.”

The new buyer paid £62,000 for the pub and is thought to have plans to develop holiday accommodation at its rear.

A protection order was placed on The George last year preventing its demolition and insisting it is kept as a pub after an investigation revealed parts of it dated back to the medieval period.