Around 75 residents of Twyford, near Winchester, have started an action group to reopen a pub.

Twyford Parish Council and the Campaign for Real Ale are backing the fight to save The Bugle in Park Lane from demolition.

Its owners, the Inntown Pub Company, want to replace it with 10 homes.

If their application succeeds, The Bugle would go the same way as The Dolphin, in Hazeley Road, redeveloped as housing a few years ago, leaving the village with just one pub, the Phoenix Inn, in High Street.

The Bugle remains boarded up and fenced off.

Residents met at The Bridge pub in nearby Shawford to form the Save the Bugle Action Group.

Group member, Rodney Graham, from Twyford, believes the village needs more than one pub.

"We have to demonstrate to planners that The Bugle does have a value to the residents and that it shouldn't be closed."

Parish council chairman, Chris Corcoran, said: "The sooner it's open again as a pub, the better."

He is inviting the owners to meet councillors and campaigners.

Nobody at the Ringwood-based Inntown Pub Company was available for comment.

Mr Corcoran said the council was also seeking urgent talks with representatives of Twyford Social Club whose premises in Queen Street, coincidentally, also faces an uncertain future.

Last month, city planners refused the club's application to demolish the building and replace it with four semi-detached houses.

Officers said the development would be too large and were concerned about the loss of the venue.

Club trustee, Charles Smith, said they did not want to close and that the application had been a ploy to increase the value of the land should it "go under".

* For more information about the campaign, visit www.savethebugle.co.uk and www.handsoffourpub.co.uk