DISTRICT council leader Di Rayner has been forced to backtrack after publicly announcing that the council had put its plans for a £6.5 million new office on hold.

At Friday's meeting of the Great Malvern Town Partnership, Coun Rayner was asked why the council was proposing to close public toilets at the same time as it was working on plans to spend such a large sum of money on a new office.

She told members a decision had been taken for the property strategy, agreed in January, to be put on hold following the receipt of a letter from minister David Milliband, which indicated his intention to change the structure of local government in Malvern.

She said no more work would be done until it was clear what Malvern's future would be.

But this week, senior council officer Kevin Douglas said no such decision had been taken.

When asked to explain the discrepancy, Coun Rayner said: "We're going ahead with the property strategy. I did say it was going to be put on the back burner, but what I meant was that we wanted to take account of what's happening in local government reorganisation. We need to know that to get the best value for the people of Malvern. We're still working on the strategy."

Is Coun Rayner an appropriate leader of MHDC? See Opinion.