A COMMUNITY group has been left searching for new premises after Burnley Council and a housing association bought the building it had planned to buy and turned it into a new homeless shelter.

The Community Alliance, which brings together and supports the borough's residents' and community groups, had ambitious plans to move out of its rented offices, in a council building in Nicholas Street, and buy a building in Elizabeth Street to create a new resource centre.

It was awarded an £18,000 grant to pay consultants and architects to do a feasibility study, structural survey and business plan, with the possibility of further funding to buy and refurbish the building.

The Community Alliance, which was a council run project until this month when it became an independent organisation, told the authority about its interest in buying the building.

Judy Yacoub, co-ordinator for the Community Alliance, said she then discovered the council was interested in buying the building itself in partnership with Burnley and Padiham Community Housing to provide accommodation for the borough's homeless. She claims her subsequent phone calls to the authority were then not returned.

She said: "We were told that the council and BPCH were interested in using it for homeless shelter. I tried to contact council officers to discuss this, but got no response.

"Eventually we found out through a council agenda that that was going ahead."

Brenda Rochester, chairman of the Community Alliance, said: "Our major concern now is the future and where we are going to be."

Mike Cook, the council's director of regeneration and housing, said the council had acted "entirely properly" in its purchase of the building and vowed to help the Community Alliance find an alternative building.

He said: "I understand that they are disappointed that they have not got the building, but that must not cloud the fact that this is a much-needed facility."

The building is currently being converted into a 26-unit shelter for the homeless, which is expected to be finished in July.