A Suffolk art club has successfully applied to have its former home registered as an Asset of Community Value (ACV), giving it the right to buy the premises.

Woodbridge Art Club used to be based at the Tide Mill Way base until its lease expired in March, with the premises' owner the town council not offering the club a new lease amid plans to make the property available for wider community use.

However, the club has been granted the ACV status for the property, with the council set to undertake a 28-day public engagement exercise seeking opinions on the future management of the Tide Mill Way building.

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If the town council decided to sell the premises, the ACV status gives the club one month to decide if it wishes to trigger a six month moratorium period which is there to provide them with time to decide if they wish to try and buy Tide Mill Way.

During this period, the town council can market and agree to whom it wishes to sell the building, which is not just limited to the art club, but can not complete the sale.

The club's chair Jean Maxwell said the club had "passed the first hurdle" of applying to the Government's Community Ownership Fund (COF) for funding, but it was "unclear" what would happen to this fund with the new Labour Government coming in.

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She added: "In an ideal world we would still like somehow to be able to buy, for the council to understand that our vision would certainly include the community involvement they desire, and that the COF would provide sufficient money for the roof repairs and other necessary work and fitting out before we could return.

"In the meantime the building remains empty and it is incredibly sad to walk past when we all feel things could have been very different if the council had only worked with us from the beginning.

"No building should lie empty for months and it need not have happened."

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A town council spokesperson said: "The public engagement which the town council must undertake in order to accord with our own internal policies will be launched once the draft document has been approved by the council – this document seeks public opinion on the options available to the council for the future management of both 15 Tide Mill Way and the Theatre Street toilet site.

"Only once this document has been in the public domain for 28 days, the responses analysed and then considered at a council meeting, will the council be able to make a decision about the future management of these two assets."

Following the club's departure from Tide Mill Way, its sections moved to different venues, including the painters and lacemakers moving to the 5th Woodbridge Sea Scouts' HQ.

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