More than 100 turn out in support of civic centre

Organiser Anthony Gilmore said there was still strong feeling over the civic centre

More than 100 people have taken part in a rally over the future of a community building.

It marked one year since parts of Whitchurch Civic Centre closed, following the discovery of potentially unsafe concrete in its structure.

Shropshire Council is considering either repairing the building or replacing it with a similar facility.

One of the organisers of Wednesday evening's march, Anthony Gilmore, said people were still strongly in favour of keeping the centre in some form.

He said his personal preference would be for the centre to be demolished and rebuilt, bringing it up to "modern-day standards".

The rally took people from the Bullring to the market hall, where a meeting was held.

Mr Gilmore said it was a "real crying shame" the building was out of use and that its closure had "ripped the heart out of Whitchurch".

Shropshire Council said it took the decision to close parts of the building for safety reasons, after the reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac) was found.

A council report in January recommended demolishing the civic centre and use it for mixed-use development, but that was met by widespread opposition from local residents.

Since then, Mr Gilmore said the prospects had been "quite positive".

More than 400 turned out for the first demonstration in support of the civic centre and he said he organised rallies every other week.

"A lot of people in the town are behind this and want it to succeed," he said.