Plans to turn a Llechryd pub and guest house into a home have been refused by planners who said it would “result in the loss of an important facility” for the village.

The scheme to turn the Seven Stars Inn into a home were hatched, planning documents said, after owners marketed the building as a business but were unable to sell or find new tenants to run it after the previous ones retired.

Documents said that the applicant purchased the site in 2007 and ran the guest house for two years before leasing it out.

The tenants retired and vacated the property in March 2022.

In February 2022 the premises were placed on the market for £350,000.

The price was reduced to £320,000 in September 2023 and reduced again to £318,000 in December 2023.

Alternative community uses are “limited”, owners argued, with the village already having a community hall.

Council officers said that turning the building into a home “would result in the loss of an important facility” that would be “to the detriment of the local community.”

“It has not been sufficiently proven that the existing use of the building is unviable,” a report said, “nor that no other community use can be viably established.”