A storm is brewing in a village over the future of one of its pubs.

Proposals to convert part of The Angel in Debenham into a home has been met with opposition from residents.

Last year the pub closed so it could be downsized as the owners Nick and Stacey Paine wanted to cut costs but keep the business going.

It reopened with a new landlady, Pat Hercus, last April, but the group, Save the Angel, are campaigning for the formal proposals, which are now with Mid Suffolk District Council planners, to be rejected.

Mrs Hercus, 65, believes the group is having an adverse effect on the business, adding that the plans would “change nothing”.

“The pub is doing all right. It has had a blip now with all of this – people think as it’s called Save the Angel that the pub is closing, but it is not,” she said.

“It’s causing a nuisance; it’s affecting the business. There will be a building at the back so we have still got two-thirds of the pub which it will remain as is.”

Jack Abbott, Labour’s parliamentary candidate for the Central Suffolk and North Ipswich seat, is one of the campaigners fighting the planned changes.

He said there had been “mis-communication” which had caused some to believe the pub is to close.

“The pub has been there for 400 years and if it gets voted through it will never be converted back to a pub (like it was previously) and a huge amount of history and heritage will be lost,” he said.

“It’s obviously a difficult period to run pubs, the recession has been difficult but personally I find it difficult to believe that by reducing the potential amount of people who can come into the pub will safeguard its future.”

He said the parish council was also against the proposals.

The Save the Angel group has carried out a survey which it says sees 90% of the residents and businesses questioned supportive of them.

Mid Suffolk is expected to make a decision on the plans this month.

The pub’s owners were unavailable for comment.