PLANS to build 12 homes on the site of a former York pub have cleared a major hurdle.

City of York Council planning officers have recommended approval for proposals to create two and three-storey properties where the Turf Tavern, in Dringhouses, once stood.

The application for the Thanet Road scheme, put forward by the site’s owner, Howard Bryan and Union Pension Trustees Ltd, will be discussed when the authority’s west and city centre area planning sub-committee meets this week.

Campaigners battled to save the pub from closure, but it shut last September and demolition work began last month after it was targeted by arsonists before Christmas.

The two and three-bedroom homes would be created in three terraces. The site was the centre of a row when council officers lifted a restrictive covenant which had prevented it being used for anything other than a pub without local councillors being consulted.