The building’s owner, Les Atallah, said there would be some changes and the hotel would close so the major works could take place.

“We are in the process of seeing what we can do, because it is a heritage building and we are limited as to how many changes we can make,” he said.

“The focus won’t be on a pub as it is now.” 

The Leader believes there will be a restaurant and accommodation in the changes.

The current tenants, Gary and Belinda Burgess, could not be contacted yesterday.

Mr Atallah said the closure would be announced this week, but he wasn’t sure when exactly it would close.

“The reason it’s closing is the work happening,” he said.

“There will be a lot of changes that will be announced in due course.”

Mr Atallah said he had to have a lot of discussions with council.

“We are negotiating with council to put the end result together,” he said.

“We won’t know until we lodge the DA.”

Mr Atallah said he couldn’t say what the changes would be until he had held those discussions.