The landlords of a historic Wymondham pub hope to welcome more members of the community through their doors as they apply to convert its former guest rooms into one hall.

Admiral Taverns, owner of the Green Dragon in Church Street, has submitted plans to remove partition walls to reinstate an original function room on its first floor.

Landlords Justin Harvey and David Bear hope the move will give the pub the opportunity to get more involved in the town's cultural events, such as literary festival Wymondham Words, and provide space for private functions, like wedding receptions. 'Upstairs used to be a banqueting hall and we want to put it back to one room. We already have local groups and organisations who want to use it for their meetings or training,' said Mr Harvey.

The plans follow the withdrawal of an application to extend the pub's licence to include the provision of outdoor music after objections were raised by some nearby residents.

The pub can already apply to hold up to 12 events per year. And although the landlords said they were not planing to increase the number of events, the amendment to the licence would have provided more flexibility in terms of when they were held and would have cut the cost of having to apply for temporary notices.

Mr Harvey added: 'We have now retracted the music licence application because we do recognise where we are and understand we are in a residential area.'

Since taking over the iconic pub two years ago, the friends have been praised for transforming the run-down building back into a popular venue having opened up new rooms, redecorated, refurbished the furniture and hosted community events – the most recent having raised about �2,000 for Wymondham-based charity Star Throwers.

Their efforts have seen them twice reach the finals of South Norfolk Council's Community Pub of the Year.