Royal British Legion members are fighting against plans to demolish a Wolvercote social club to make way for houses.

Pensioners in the village say proposals to demolish The Wolvercote Social Bar would leave them without a community venue, which hosts the annual Remembrance Sunday commemoration.

The club, in Plough Close, was owned by the Royal British Legion Club until five years ago when the organisation found itself with £70,000 debts. It has been run since by private tenants on a rent-free lease.

Now site owners, the Bernard Morris Charitable Trust, has submitted a planning application to build two semi-detached houses and a three one-bedroom flats.

Legion branch chairman Ken Bampton said demolishing the club, which opens four days a week, would be a “terrible blow” to the community.

He said: “It could do with some external improvement, but the club means a lot to many people in the area.

“The function room is the only one in either Upper or Lower Wolvercote to have a bar, a stage and a kitchen.

“It is constant demand from people across a wide area.

“The Royal British Legion and the Wrens meet here, there is line dancing here and bingo every Sunday.”

Nearby Wolvercote Youth Club is also under threat because of Oxfordshire County Council plans to axe funding for the service.

Mr Bampton, 72, said the current tenants’ lease should be extended, and hoped the Royal British Legion would one day be able to buy back the building.

Dunkirk veteran Les Collett, 90, has been a member of the Royal British Legion branch since the 1940s, including when the club opened 51 years ago.

In the 1960s, while working at Cowley motor works, he was one of eight members who gave £100 towards the dance room extension.

He said: “I wheel my wife down here in a wheelchair every week. It would be terrible if it closed. It might even give me a heart attack.”

But in the planning application, the Bernard Morris Charitable Trust, which owns the site, said the club was only occasionally used. In its plans for the site, the trust also stated the building was in need of considerable work.

Last November, Oxford City councillors turned down a previous attempt to build homes on the site, saying the proposed buildings were too big and would cause the permanent loss of a community facility.