PROPOSALS to build a community centre at the former Green Street First School site have collapsed and instead the land involved is set to be sold on the open market.

A bitterly disappointed Munir Hussain, chairman of the Green Street Community Development Trust, which has been planning for the High Wycombe centre for the past six years, said the trust would try to find another site.

He said: "But where will we get somewhere like this in the heart of the community?" He said the trust had plans drawn up and money could have come from sources such as the European Social Fund. Two weeks ago Mr Hussain was sitting down with district and county council leaders and everything seemed to be fine.

Bucks County Council, which owns the school site, was going to sell half of the land to Wycombe District for £750,000, who would make some of it available for the community centre and build affordable homes on the rest.

The county would refurbish the Victorian school at a cost of £1.5 million and use it for education and social services. A week later Mr Hussain got a letter saying the sale to Wycombe was not going to happen. The future of the school site has been talked about for years. Last year the Free Press reported that all that was needed was Wycombe District Council's signature on a piece of paper.

But now the county council has decided it cannot wait any longer.

Council leader David Shakespeare and resources cabinet member Frank Downes have decided to go ahead with refurbishing the school and sell the rest of the land to the highest bidder.

Cllr Downes said the county bit of the scheme had to go ahead quickly or the county would lose the £150,000 promised under the Government's Sure Start scheme for a children's creche. And the contract approved for the school refurbishment work would run out of time and have to be retendered, meaning a higher cost to the council "We had a number of different sorts of money which had to be taken up by the end of February or we would lose them," he said. With hindsight we were trying to do too much on the site. We all worked hard on this but it didn't fit together."

Cllr Lesley Clarke, leader of Wycombe District Council, said a community centre would still be built, but not on the school site.

The town centre was being regenerated and there would be somewhere for a centre to serve all the community. She said the £750,000 the county wanted for the land did not stack up, given the number of houses that could be built there.

She agreed that the county had to make a decision or lose out on cash needed to refurbish the old school and provide the Sure Start creche and adult education facilities, which a lot of people would be pleased to have. "If we all get better facilities in that area we should be pleased," she said.