NEW plans have been submitted to turn the former Richmond sorting office into a pub and restaurant.

Watford-based pub chain J D Wetherspoon, which has 370 non-music pubs across England, Scotland and Wales, hopes to convert the empty Queens Road building into a pub and wine bar offering food and real ale.

A planning application has been submitted to Richmondshire district council, which rejected proposals from a Durham-based developer for a £700,000 restaurant and pub scheme on the site in September 1999.

Officers supported the proposals but the planning committee backed residents' concerns about litter, vandalism, noise and traffic problems.

If development goes ahead, the post office counter business would be unaffected.

The old sorting office and the yard was earmarked as a potential supermarket site, before the decision taken to build the Co-op on the Friary Field