An appeal will be launched this week after permission for an alcohol licence at a controversial former pub was turned down.

Plans to turn the former King of Denmark into a stylish Italian restaurant were halted when Merton Council refused permission for the license at the premises in Ridgway, Wimbledon, earlier this month.

Neighbours of the former pub, now partly converted into nine flats, were celebrating the rejection after years of campaigning against it.

The St John's Area Residents’ Association said it would oppose the appeal, due to be submitted this week by the applicant Hops UK.

Wimbledon Times:

Boarded up: The former pub before it was demolished 

The bid was rejected over concerns the restaurant would be bigger than the pub, which closed in the early 1990s and became derelict.

An outline planning application to knock down the building and turn it into three storey flats was rejected by the council in 2008, but the decision was overturned by the Planning Inspectorate on appeal.

The flats have now been built and are currently occupied, but what to do with the ground floor is still hotly debated.

Andrew Pinchin, managing director of Hops UK, which submitted the application on behalf of Gusto Limited, said to keep it empty would be absurd.

Residents’ association chairman Peter Hirsch said concerns from neighbours included parking, noise and disturbance from people leaving the restaurant late at night.

Mr Pinchin said: "We are reviewing our options.

"I think a nice Italian restaurant would be an asset to the area.

"A restaurant is much less intrusive for neighbours than a pub.

"We are concerned the people living in the flats are not disturbed - we have a vested interest in keeping everyone happy."

Mr Hirsch, chairman of the St John's Area Residents’ Association said: "The residents are firmly against this.

"The village is saturated with licensed premises and we do not want any more."

Residents held a protest outside the pub in 2010 when plans were originally lodged to convert the derelict pub into flats. The council’s licensing sub-committee rejected the alcohol license on Wednesday, January 7.

Reasons included concerns the new restaurant, run by Gusto Limited, would be a ‘destination’ premises rather than one which would serve local residents, that it would be more suitable in a high street location, as well as concerns over the size of the restaurant.