Fears old Brackley station building will be replaced with houses

The building on Top Station Road was vacated by ATS Euromaster last month and is being auctioned next week, with housing developers reportedly keen to snap it up.

Residents have banded together in a bid to stop the sale to save the historic building from being demolished but time is running out.

Colin Parry, who has lived in Brackley all his life and is campaigning to rescue Top Station, said every developer he spoke to at an open day on Tuesday said they would build homes on the site.

"That would be a stupid waste of a piece of the town's history so we're doing what we can to save it," he said.

The building was built in 1899 to serve the Great Central Railway Line and was one of two stations in Brackley before both closed under the Beeching cuts of the 1960s.

Tyre specialists ATS occupied the site for decades before closing last month - Mr Parry said it is in great condition with many original features remaining.

The station building is being sold via sealed bids next week but Mr Parry and others hope it stop it, pursuing legal avenues and lobbying councillors and councils, even the Prime Minister, but to no avail so far.

"We want it as a community-type building to do as many different things in there as we can to share the cost of keeping the building," he said.

A Facebook group, Save Brackley's Railway Station, has been set up to co-ordinate the campaign.