PUBLIC feedback on multi-million pound plans to regenerate Worcester’s Shrub Hill Quarter has seen calls for Elgar House to be demolished.

But residents may have to live with the “eyesore” building even as the railway station and the land around it is transformed in the coming years.

Plans for the area are set to create more than 500 homes, up to 5,000 jobs and two hectares of public space.

Members of the city council’s Place and Economic Development committee this week formally adopted a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD), which includes the results of a public consultation on the proposals.

ARTISTIC: A drawing included in the SPDARTISTIC: A drawing included in the SPD (Image: Worcester City Council)

“Public feedback on Shrub Hill regeneration plans regularly calls for the demolition of Elgar House as an eyesore,” the document says, “however, although aesthetically it may jar with the Victorian railway station it obscures, its condition is not so poor as to be regarded a dis amenity.

“Neither the city nor the county council are likely to be in a position to acquire Elgar House, by agreement or otherwise, in the foreseeable future and afford the cost of its demolition.

“External funding for this purpose, which would not generate any significant net positive land value, is also considered to be remote.”

Kevin Moore, Worcester City Council’s head of property and asset management, told the committee the only objection to the plan had come from the owners of Elgar House.

“In the draft SPD we set out a clear aspiration that we’d all like to see the back of Elgar House but there was an element of pragmatism in terms of drilling down into the plans for the front of the station - we were honest enough to show the retention of Elgar House.

“We’ve met with the owner’s agents to take this a little further forward. Their objection picked up on the apparent contradiction in what we were saying.

“The owners own Elgar House and a plot opposite on which stands a vacant single-storey building.”

Mr Moore said the hope is that Worcestershire County Council will buy the plot with the vacant building and that the owners of Elgar House will put forward plans to revamp the building.