Major building work was today under way as plans to turn a Shoebury pub into sheltered housing for the elderly moved a step closer.

Contractors have now fenced off the site to the public as a massive reconstruction programme - scheduled to take many months - starts.

Mystery had surrounded what the future would hold for the former Shoe and Cobbler pub since it was boarded up in February last year.

Southend police got the licence to the Ness Road pub revoked in July and the future for what was once the Cambridge Hotel looked uncertain for many months.

Developers Runwood Homes, of London Road, Hadleigh, have lodged plans with Southend Council's town planners to build a 51 bed two storey sheltered housing complex.

Tumbledown pub - the Shoe and Cobbler in Shoebury makes way for sheltered housing

Picture: STEVE O'CONNELL

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.