VILLAGERS have clubbed together and bought a run-down house to transform into a café, homes for locals and to solve parking chaos.

Great Oakley Community Hub, which owns the neighbouring Maybush Inn in Farm Road, is celebrating after a deal was struck on Red House.

The house, on the corner of Farm Road and High Street, has been neglected for years and is in desperate need of restoration.

The community hub is set to convert it into a much-needed food establishment for the village, which is hoped to help vulnerable villagers get a hot meal each day at a reasonable cost without leaving Great Oakley.

Plans also include using the yard for parking to help alleviate what has been described as a parking crisis in the centre of the village.

First floor accommodation will be set aside for the benefit of villagers in the form of affordable rented flats.

Hub chairman Mark Godfrey said: “It ticks many boxes, helping sort the parking problems, providing an eatery for the village and the possibility of affordable lets for those wishing to remain in the village rather than move to other parts of the district.

“It also effectively doubles the footprint of the Maybush Inn via the garden which will allow us to continue our improvements to our village pub including the addition of more disabled facilities.

“Additional pop-up services the community needs or wants also now become possible and we will consult on these as the project progresses.

“The transformation we have already made to the Maybush Inn should allow the wider community to look forward with confidence to the day when Red House is restored to its former glory and becomes an attraction to the village once again.”

The group put in an offer for the five-bedroom house, after it came on the market for a guide price of £240,000, which was accepted. At least £70,000 needed to be raised towards the purchase and refurbishment.

Volunteers are expected to begin an initial tidy up of the grounds this weekend.

Red House will be open for people to look at the proposed project during the nationwide Community Business weekend on October 7 and 8 from midday.

For more information about Red House, visit maybushinn.co.uk.