Campaigners say they are getting closer to rescuing a prominent Victorian building.

Last month a 160-signature petition was handed over to Bradford Council in a bid to get the Emmfield Villas building in Emm Lane, Heaton, Bradford, compulsory-purchased.

Now the Council has confirmed it intends to do just that and a legal notice has gone up on the building’s door.

A Council spokesman said: “A notice has gone up outside this property to inform people of our intention to compulsory purchase it. This gives anyone the chance to object to the Department for Communities and Local Government by September 1.”

Residents have described the villa as being in a state of dereliction and a “blight” on their neighbourhood. The petition was started in March by Heaton Township Association, a group set up in the 1970s to protect the area’s interests.

The building, which lies within the Heaton Estates Conservation Area, was originally in the hands of a private owner.

During the 1970s the building was converted from three houses into 12 flats. In 1997 the Council granted planning permission for a nursing home, but the scheme collapsed.

In 2008 a change of use application was approved to convert the building back to three houses. A condition attached to the approval was that the development would have to start within three years.

One of the campaigners is Elizabeth Hellmich, who said common sense had prevailed.

“It’s great news,” she said. “At last we can start to look forward to making the road into Heaton free of this eyesore. We don’t know what the Council will do with it but hopefully they will be selling it on to someone who will refurbish it and take it back to its former glory.”

The building is understood to be owned by property developer Liaqat Ali, of L A Properties, which has an office in Duckworth Lane, Bradford.

No-one at the company responded to a request by the Telegraph & Argus for a comment yesterday.