The concert hall was to be sold to property developers

Plans to demolish the Winter Gardens concert hall in Bournemouth could be scrapped.

The new leaders of the borough council, the Liberal Democrats, want to reverse a vote by the previous administration to knock down the building.

They say the gardens should be refurbished instead.

After 12 years of wrangling over the future of the gardens, a decision had been finally made in August 2002 to sell the site to property developers.

It hasn't got historical value Former council leader Bob Chapman

The building had been deteriorating for a number of years.

It was planned that money from the �9m sale would go towards refurbishing the town's Pavilion Theatre.

Now, the Lib Dems are proposing that the gardens should be run by the private sector.

The building has fallen into disrepair

Dr John Millward, Liberal Democrat leader of Bournemouth Borough Council, said: "We're not selling it off to the private sector, we are getting other people to run it, that's the most important thing.

"People with experience and expertise. Which we are not."

It is not a view shared by the Conservatives, who were behind the push to sell the building under the previous hung council.

Conservative Bob Chapman, the former leader of the council, said "We have to push Bournemouth into the 21st Century - we can't hang on to the past.

"It is a building that was, for heaven's sake, built as an indoor bowling rink in the 1930s - it hasn't got historical value."