A FRESH petition urging action to help the plight of a long-derelict Marston pub has been launched.

The Somerset House Pub, New Marston, closed its doors in 2014 and has stood derelict ever since.

After a raft of closures in the area it could be the last chance for a pub in the area and a group of residents are campaigning to restore it to its former glory.

Launching the new petition this week Marston resident Susannah Wilson called the pub a ‘one of a kind’ and urged people to back her campaign.

She said: “Marston has already lost The Plasterers Arms, The Jack Russell, The Friar, The Cavalier, The Three Horseshoes, The Bricklayers Arms and the White Hart, which have all been converted to other uses by property developers.

“We urgently need community spaces as well as housing, and pubs are an important and irreplaceable part of our heritage.

“If the Somerset is lost there will be no pubs in New Marston, an area of some 4,000 residents.

“Marston is in real need of public spaces for eating, drinking and meeting. Many of us know and love the Somerset, and remember it as a thriving pub.

“We have come together to lobby local government to recognise the importance of preserving our last pub and to campaign to see it re-opened for community use.”

The petition, since it was launched on Tuesday, has already gained 255 signatures and will be delivered to Oxford City Council.

The Somerset House is a privately owned and people want to work with authorities, and the owners in bring int back to life.

Marston councillor Mick Haines, who himself launched a petition last summer, has also lent his support to the campaign and said the area was in desperate need of a community asset such as a pub.

He said: “The pub is just a derelict and the people want it to go back to a pub obviously but whether or not the owner wants that I don’t know.

"It’s all up in the air at the moment. We are having a meeting with the owner on March 1 but we don’t know what he wants to do yet. We are in the dark.

“It’s very important for the community to get something back, there are so few other pubs.

“We can’t afford to lose it, we need a pub for our area and certainly something for the community.”

It wasn’t all positive for supporters of the petition, however, and one resident writing on the online petition site, as 'Kelly H', said re-opening it as a pub would be pointless.

She said: “If the people of Marston actually used the places they’ve been so desperate to save they wouldn’t have all closed.

“A pub in New Marston is desperately needed but no point in someone taking it on and then losing a lot of money.”