Campaigners seeking to retain the Kings Head in East Bergholt have lost the battle after Babergh Council granted permission to turn the 400-year-old building into a craft shop and cafe.

The pub closed last summer, just three years after it was given a major facelift by its new owners.

Pub owner Kevin Brennan told Babergh’s planning committee that despite spending £150,000 on updating the building and supporting the business by £100,000 over the last three years it was not possible to run it as a going concern.

He said the pub had been run as a “gastro-pub” but this had not brought enough business: “The Kings Head has never been a community pub as such with a pool team, a darts team. It has always been used more by people from outside the area except for Christmas lunches,” he said.

Mr Brennan told the committee there were four other pubs in the village and the cafe and craft shop would bring jobs to the village.

Joan Miller from East Bergholt Parish Council told the meeting there were no other pubs in that part of the village, which was divided into distinct areas – and one of the other pubs was some way out of the main village area.

She told the committee: “The King Head is a designated community asset, providing a social and cultural benefit to the eastern core of the village.”

As an “Asset of Community Value,” local people had to be given the chance to buy it if it came on to the market.

She said that out of 130 responses to a public consultation, 125 local people wanted the pub to be retained in its current form.

She was supported by local resident Jenna Ackerley who said local people had been keen to buy the pub or support other owners who wanted to reopen it.

She said: “Rejecting this application really is the only chance that this historic pub can be saved.”

However the committee voted 9-5 to back the officers’ recommendation that the change of use should be approved.

Planning committee chair Peter Beer said: “After thorough debate the Committee concluded that there were no material planning grounds to justify refusing permission.

“The change of use not only meets the requirements of sustainable development but will also provide continued full time employment in the village going forward.”