For sale signs have gone up at a crumbling former magistrates court in Shropshire and estate agents have already had a couple of inquiries about the 166-year-old building.

Shifnal Magistrates Court is on the market for about £175,000 and is being sold with permission for five flats and office space by Andrew Dixon Estate Agents.

The latest move comes after Shifnal Town Council threw in the towel last month and called an end to its bid to bulldoze it and replace it with homes.

A controversial bid to demolish the building to make way for four homes was deferred three times.

Alex Smith, a spokesman for the estate agents, said: “The for sale signs went up yesterday morning and we have already had a couple of tentative inquiries by telephone at the office.

“We will be following those up first thing on Monday morning.”

Shifnal Town Council had applied for permission to put up a pair of semi-detached two-bedroom homes and a pair of two-bedroom flats by demolishing the 166-year-old building.

But at a Shropshire Council area regulatory committee meeting in Bridgnorth last year, councillors backed a recommendation for refusal by planning officer Mike Clough.

Campaigners collected a 1,000-name petition in a bid to save the court from the bulldozer.

They had considered approaching English Heritage in a bid to get it listed to protect the court from future development.

It was revealed people in Shifnal would face a 57 per cent cut in the town council’s share of the council tax bill.

The authority had been spending hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money propping up the crumbling building.