A PROMINENT Furness country pub with views over the Duddon estuary may be halved in size to provide two new homes.

The owners of the High Cross Inn at Broughton-in-Furness want to split the pub up and create two dwellings to sit alongside a smaller hostelry.

Duddon Parish Council has objected to the plan for the pub, which sits in a prominent hilltop position overlooking the estuary on the edge of the town.

It says that allowing the new homes could lead to an application to close the pub completely and turn the building into solely residential use – leading to job losses in the community.

But the Lake District National park Authority's development control committee is being recommended to approve the project.

Chriscross Ltd wants to change the use of part of the inn to form two local occupancy homes.

Its plan includes demolition of a conservatory to make space for two storey and single storey extensions with slate roofs and rendered walls with part timber cladding – and the pub car park would also be split into two sections.

National park officers say in a report that since 2000 the pub has suffered economically, with successive tenants suffering considerable losses, and the changes would fund the improvements needed to keep it open going forward.

They add that the development had been designed to avoid adverse effects on the national park and was in line with local policies of 'sustainable' development.

It would, therefore, go a small way to meeting the housing needs of the locality subject to a local occupancy condition being imposed on the development.

A decision will be made when the committee meets next Wednesday, December 2