Councillors today pledged to help Bradford's award-winning Soup Run which faces the loss of its "home" when a supermarket is built on the land.

The charity, which helps thousands of homeless people, may have to give up the Council-owned site in Nelson Street, where its 40-foot trailer is based.

Soup Run director John Tempest is taking legal advice on possible action under the Human Rights Act and says the Council failed to tell him about the planning application by developers Asda St James.

The Soup Run, which is a registered charity, has been allowed to use the land without charge for about ten years and gives food and clothes to about 70 people a night.

But today chairman of the Bradford Area Planning panel, Councillor Clive Richardson, pledged the Council would do everything possible to help find the Soup Run another home when the development took place.

The planning panel referred the application last month to Stephen Byers, Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, for a decision last month.

The referral was necessary because the land was not designated for shopping, but the panel told the Secretary of State it felt the application should be approved.

Yesterday Mr Byers' department said he had decided the decision could stand and he was not calling it in for a public inquiry.

Mr Tempest said today: "We have taken legal advice regarding the possibility of a judicial review and possible ramifications under the Human Rights Act, specifically over the way the public authority have acted in an unreasonable way.

"Although we have been advised to make no further comment at this stage, we want to make it clear that we have no intention of binding the hands of the Council. But we would like to think it might extend the hand of friendship in our direction before this matter goes much further.

"We are naturally concerned about the future. However, as we have in the last 17 years, we will put the needs of those we meet on the street first."

Coun Richardson said the application had been made in 1998 before he was chairman, and the Soup Run should have been notified.

"It is a good charity and the Council has supported it. If and when it is necessary we will help it to find a new site," he said.

But he said objections by the charity about the loss of its home could not have been planning grounds for its refusal.