MALVERN Town Council will be asked to consider selling off or renting out its £600,000 Belle Vue Terrace headquarters as a matter of urgency.

The motion, which will be considered by the council on Monday, is being tabled by Coun Adrian Ward and backed by MTAG members.

It will require town clerk Shirley Young to provide a current valuation of the property and estimates of income from renting each part of it.

She will also be asked to cost the conversion of premises at the rear of the building to office use and seek professional advice on other uses for it, including housing.

Ms Young said the rear part of the building, which used to house the Bran Tub shop, was the only unoccupied bit. The council has set aside £15,000 to renovate it but more would be needed to complete the task.

The Grade II listed Manders building, which cost £212,000 to buy and £415,000 to convert, was estimated by then town clerk, Stuart McDonough, to have operating costs of £100,000 per year.

Coun Ward said the purpose of the motion was to get the facts and figures that would allow the next administration to examine how best to make the building more cost-effective.

"At the moment, it's costing the council a lot of money, and it's under-utilised," he said.

The council originally intended it to be a one-stop shop. However, new plans for a £1.5 million one-stop shop at Malvern Library for county and district council-related inquiries were unveiled last month.

Coun Ward said the decision of the county and district councils not to join MTC in the Manders one-stop shop had been disappointing, but the council now needed to act in the light of this.