CHURCHES are taking up the fight to save cultural and community aspects of the controversial Kidderminster town centre development.

Wyre Forest District Council and developer Centros Miller are under fire for lack of recreational and cultural facilities in the £25 million KTC1 plan.

The consortium has so far failed to land a cinema, number one on people's wish-lists, and an arts centre.

Many fear the development, planned to be a waterfront leisure and shopping complex providing about 1,000 jobs, will end up a mish-mash of shops, retail sheds and car parks.

Now Kidderminster churches plan a social centre, with a Christian theme, to offer fed-up parishioners a meeting place.

It will include a bookshop and advice and counselling rooms, in the "high quality" centre at Baxter Church in the Bull Ring.

It follows criticism from Wyre Forest MP David Lock, Kidderminster Civic Society, Kidderminster Town Centre Partnership, Wyre Forest Arts Forum and the Nonentities theatre group about the lack of social and cultural facilities on site.

Father Douglas Lamb, of the town's St Ambrose Church, said: "We are doing our best to provide something for the community.

"There is widespread disappointment among people on how the town centre is going.

"We share the disappointment at the apparent lack of imagination and vision being shown.

"We had hoped to see the town recover its heart with the provision of recreational, social and cultural facilities as well as commercial projects."

He added: "Parents are very concerned children will still have to go to Merry Hill, Birmingham and Worcester.

"We are disheartened decisions are apparently being taken without consultation with groups such as ourselves, thus passing up the opportunity of creating effective partnerships which might have realised something better.

"There is a need for a forum where the public's views can be considered."

Developer Centros Miller's spokesman could not comment on the consultation process or arts centre but stressed the fight for recreation and culture went on.

He said: "We have not given up the fight for a cinema - a multiplex would be a tremendous boost for the town centre.

"The problem is there are very few cinema operators expanding in the UK at the moment - we cannot magic one out of nowhere."