Last orders have been called on the Scholar Gypsy pub in Kennington.

The campaign to save it has been dealt a final blow by Punch Retail, the owners, and the Vale of White Horse District Council. It will be demolished later this year and replaced by 12 new homes.

The once popular pub has fallen on hard times, the victim of competition from the other village pub, The Tandem, and elsewhere.

A Punch spokesman said there were 92 pubs within a three-mile radius, which demonstrated the intensity of local competition for customers. The company had tried to market the pub on a leasehold basis but without success.

Jerry Patterson, chairman of the district council planning committee, said it was sad to see the disappearance of a pub which had been a focus of village life for many years.

But he added: "Times have changed and it seems that because of fierce competition the Scholar Gypsy is not a viable proposition. As a pub its value is only a third of what it would fetch as a development site."

Kennington Parish Council clerk George Ross said the decision came as no surprise.

He said: "You could see it coming but what do you expect when the pub has been neglected in recent years? Some people in the village were interested in taking on the pub on a freehold basis, but got nowhere with the owners."

The district council has approved the demolition of the pub and now Punch Retail plans to sell the site for housing.

But councillors are unhappy with the design and have asked Berkeley Homes to go back to the drawing board.

The Scholar Gypsy was built in the early 1960s by Halls Brewery which became part of Ind Coope. It was named after the poem by Professor of Poetry at Oxford University, Matthew Arnold, who had associations with the area.