A CHARITY wants to save a derelict cemetery chapel from possible demolition and restore it as its headquarters.

Joseph Maxwell of Despencers Charitable Trust, which helps people representing themselves in court and provides housing support to homeless people, has contacted Bradford Council about the chapel building at Bowling Cemetery.

The local authority had submitted plans for the partial demolition of the neglected Grade II listed building and for the creation of a memorial garden.

The razing was designed to cut crime at a problem hotspot where a “staggering” number of offences have taken place, but objections were submitted by English Heritage and the council’s own conservation department.

However, late last week the council confirmed it had received two expressions of interest in the building, so had withdrawn demolition plans.

Mr Maxwell hopes to make the building, in Rooley Lane, the headquarters of the charity he is a trustee of.

He said: "The building is quite close to the gate, so we would want to build a fence around it and create a separate entrance.

"We are desperately looking for a building and would like to use the chapel as our office.

"We hope that the council would be able to transfer it to us and we could get some funding to help us restore it back to the way it was before and look after it. English Heritage have advised us of potential funding for this sort of thing."

The charity was set up in May last year and is currently run from Mr Maxwell's flat in Bradford.

The Roman Catholic chapel, built more than a century ago, has been vacant since 1987 and has become a magnet for “serious and persistent” crime, whilst also using public resources, according to the original planning application report.

The document said numerous gravestones at Bowling Cemetery had vandalised and there had been muggings and assaults in recent months, cataloguing 15 offences committed between February 1 and July 31 this year.

English Heritage had urged the council to allow more time for the search for parties to take responsibility for the building, saying that while it understood the pressures on local authority resources, “listed buildings are irreplaceable assets of national importance”. And Jon Ackroyd, conservation officer at the Council, agreed that not enough had been done to market the building.

Earlier this year, the council sent emails to groups potentially interested in taking on the chapel but no-one took up the offer.