A Privately-run hostel for the homeless opposite Wycombe railway station is up for sale.

London agent GVA Grimley is inviting offers for the property with planning permission for its present use "as a residential hostel providing short-term accommodation for persons in need."

It closed down last September, ten months after a 33-year-old ex-publican was found dead in his room.

The former church hall was built in 1890 as an auction room and over the years it has been a cinema, betting shop and caf.

In 2001 it was bought by the private company Coin UK for £250,000. According to company director Errol Bland, the firm spent a further £750,000 converting it into a home for the homeless.

Three weeks after its opening in February, 2002, all but one of the 24 bedsits had been taken. The only one left was a ground-floor room equipped for the disabled.

Coin UK opened its first house for the homeless in Wycombe in 1992 and by the time the Church on the Rock came on stream it was about to open a fourth house providing a total of 54 rooms for homeless people referred by social services, local councils and housing associations.

The death of former publican Simon Oakley at the Amersham Hill hostel in November 2003 is still under investigation by the Thames Valley Strategic Health Authority and Buckinghamshire Mental Health Trust.

A spokesman for the county council told the Free Press last month that they had withdrawn funding from the Church on the Rock "because it was not providing the quality of care they would expect".

The agents say the building has potential for other uses either to owner-occupiers or developers. There are 24 letting rooms with communal facilities including kitchens and bathrooms over three floors. No guide price is being quoted.

All efforts by the Free Press to contact Coin UK failed.