AN OFFER just short of £500,000 for a pub in Benfleet has ignited fears a fast-food restaurant or flats will soon be built there.

The Lighthouse in London Road is being sold by commercial estate agency Savills on behalf of owners, brewery Greene King.

Savills has been advertising the pub and guesthouse as a building with “development potential”, and hinted a deal may be in the pipeline.

Chartered surveyor Adam Bullas, who is looking after the sale, said: “It has got some residential potential. The area is a mixed bag, with lots of flats and commercial properties.

“We have had interest from housing associations and fastfood restaurants.”

Castle Point Council is keen to see the site turned into housing, and the offer comes just weeks after fast-food chain KFC applied to knock down the Crown Pub in London Road, Hadleigh.

Mr Bullas could not confirm the name or type of organisation behind the latest Lighthouse offer, but said: “We have had a new offer.

“Nothing has been agreed yet, so as far as we are concerned it is still on the market.

“Up until now, we have been receiving offers just shy of £500,000.”

But Benfleet resident and pub regular David Jones, 30, fears the pub will knocked down and replaced by flats.

He said: “There are flats all around here, everywhere you look.

“This is a big plot developers will have their eyes on next.”

The council earmarked the land for housing in the 1998 Local Plan, and still hopes it will be developed to help the authority meet its target of 5,000 new homes in the borough by 2026.

The current landlord is a tenant of the pub, and has a lease until early 2010. But brewery Greene King wants rid of the building.

Spokeswoman Elaine Beckett said: “Greene King regularly reviews its pub estate, and following such a review the Lighthouse pub has been put on the market.

“The pub no longer fits with Greene King’s pub portfolio.”