PLANS to demolish a Hampshire church to make way for housing have been given the green light.

The empty Netley Methodist Church will be partially demolished and transformed into a house.

Due to a declining congregation, the church on New Road was put on the market in December 2016.

Its new owners now want to convert the former place of worship into a four-bedroom home with room for three parking spaces.

As part of their plans, the existing entrance porch will be removed while the back of the building will be torn down.

A new entrance canopy and first floor will be created and a roof light and hedgerow will be added to give occupants the "more privacy and better lighting".

As previously reported, the plans approved by a planning officer on February 28 have received mixed responses from residents.

Ann Etteridge, who lives on New Road, said: “It’s just awful. We used to use the building for coffee mornings when the church first closed down, but we can’t anymore. Everything is being torn down for housing!”

Councillor Adam Manning added: I am particularly saddened by this news as I went there as a small child back in the seventies for their Sunday School and my wife and I were married there in 2000.”

While another resident who wished to remain unnamed said: “I don’t have any objections, it’s about time something decent was built there! It will be sad to see the church go but it’s just not used for anything anymore. I had lots of memories in there but if it can’t be sued, it’s time to say goodbye.”

This is not the first time that an application to partially demolish the church has been submitted to Council.

On two previous occasions, it was proposed that two houses would be built on the site but were refused as the houses would be an “overdevelopment of the site” and would be “out of character” with the pattern of development in Netley.

Another resident, Sue Whitewick, said: “The other applications were rejected. Builders call it progress but they never build things in line with the rest of the village.