A PUB at the heart of Hanley Swan is to reopen after a £420,000 revamp.

The Swan will officially open on October 25 and be run by Richard and Liza McBain, who have come from Oxfordshire.

The pub has been closed since February when the previous managers, Caroline and Alan Sutton, decided to quit after just four months.

Owner The Punch Pub Company has changed the interior layout of the building to create more room and added five bedrooms to be rented out.

The company held a meeting at the village hall at the end of July to give the new managers an opportunity to meet villagers and discuss plans for the future of the pub.

Co-licensee Stuart Bradbury said he used to visit the pub with his parents and had been saddened to see it deteriorate over the years. He said he hoped it would return to being at the centre of village life.

"A village without a pub is a village without a soul," he said. "We were very conscious of the need to give the village its pub back, but also to make it appeal to a wider radius."

The Swan was identified as the second biggest concern to villagers in a Parish Plan survey carried out in 2003. Just 22 people said they used the pub on a regular basis. Others said they feared it was falling down, as parts of the exterior had deteriorated badly.

Concerns increased when no replacement was appointed for landlord Darren Marin, who left in December 2002.

Belinda Tusi volunteered to take over as manager on a short-term contract at the beginning of 2003 and villagers, keen to ensure it stayed open, even offered her money for a deposit and help with painting and mending the garden furniture.

However, the pub closed again in August that year, reopening again briefly under the managership of the Suttons.