Backing for homes on site of old Bridgnorth council HQ

But campaigners have been given a glimmer of hope in their fight for the building.

Members of Bridgnorth Community Group have been granted an extra week to come up with a business plan for the offices at Westgate.

They hope to get the building, the former home of the now defunct Bridgnorth District Council, listed as a community asset. Talks will continue over the coming days on the best possible use for the site. Outline plans to demolish the building were approved at a meeting of the authority's south planning committee yesterday. But councillors said they hoped plans could be pulled together to retain the building for community use.

Campaigner, Paul Passant, said: "We want to retain this site for community use. We already have an architect on board and a developer. Following a meeting with Shropshire Council leader Keith Barrow we have been given another week to prepare a business plan.

"We have also been in discussion with Bridgnorth Town Council, which will try to get a further extension for about a month.

"We want the council to give this community a chance to provide jobs on the site. We are totally against having expensive houses put there, although we would look at building affordable homes as part of our own business plan.

"Part of the process is looking a community right-to-buy scheme and then a further six months to get all the funding together."

James Gittins, chairman of Bridgnorth Town Council's planning committee, said it was important the site was retained.

"We have a leisure centre that is in a pretty poor state of affairs and our youth centre, which is very well used, is also under threat of closure," he said. "We want to keep this site for employment or commercial use."

Councillor Gittins said with 500 homes earmarked for the nearby village of Tasley through the council's Site Allocations Management and Development document (SAMDev), more houses were not needed but a community asset was.

More than 1,000 people signed a petition calling for the building to be turned into a community asset, protecting it from development.

Robert Tindall, Shropshire Councillor for Brown Clee, and the council's deputy portfolio holder, said: "I would like to work with this organisation to come up with a scheme that really benefits Bridgnorth."

Nigel Hartin, Shropshire councillor for Clun, said the authority had missed a good opportunity to supply the community with a good site.