IT HAS been at the heart of a close-knit Southampton community for years.

Now the future of a popular pub has been secured after gaining landmark status protecting its future.

The Junction Inn in Priory Road, St Denys has been a regular hangout for hundreds of friends, families and acquaintances from Saints fans to church members.

Now it is the latest pub in the city to secure a specialist status giving it greater protection should it be threatened with closure.

While the landlady stresses the pub is here to stay, she has thanked the community for showing their gratitude for the establishment.

It comes after campaigners made a rallying call for people to get behind their local boozers and nominate them to be included on the Assets of Community Value (ACV) Register.

An ACV is a listing placed upon a building or land which gives the right to community groups to register it as being “vitally important” to the wellbeing of the local community.

The group must then declare interest in purchasing the asset within six weeks and a further six months in which to assemble a bid in the event that the building is put up for sale by the owner.

ACV status was introduced due to outrage at the loss of key local services – with pubs shutting their doors at the rate of almost 30 a week.

It means that a pub, for example, cannot be converted to a shop without the need for planning permission.

Local resident Paul Jenks, a former Southampton city councillor, nominated the The Junction Inn for ACV and was backed by a petition signed by 150 regulars.

Mr Jenks had previously campaigned to get Grade II-listed status for the pub, part of the Greene King chain, and started life in the 1860s as the Wareham Arms before gaining its current name in 1878.

The boozer also hosts activities such as crib and darts and is a meeting place for church groups and chess, taekwondo and morris dancers.

Mr Jenks hailed it as a “significant moment” for the pub and said: “This is a great pub where everyone’s welcome from university professors to plumbers and brickies. It’s an important part of the community. If the legislation is here it deserves to be recognised in this way.”

Pub landlady Dawn Fildes said: “This is great news for both the community and the pub. The brewery has no intention of selling the pub but it means the pub is more safeguarded in the future so that the pub can stay a pub.”

Other ACVs include the Bittern in Thornhill Park Road reopened this summer after plans to turn it into a McDonald’s were thrown out in September following a public inquiry into the controversial application and the White Horse in Keyhaven Road, Milford on Sea, is also an ACV.

Campaigners in Southampton are urging people to nominate pubs – and other public and private buildings or land – to be included on the Assets of Community Value Register.