The council has spent more than £200,000 buying – and then demolishing – a pub.

Manchester town hall chiefs bought the Golden Tavern pub in Harpurhey to turn into a ‘green space’.

The building cost £143,500 – with the demolition adding a further £70,000 to the bill.

The money was secured by two grants from the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG).

The land will be landscaped but there are no immediate plans to make use of it.

The council – who said they had acted to remove an ‘eyesore’ – pointed out they had not used their own cash.

But local activists said the money would have been better spent preserving the building or on other community schemes.

Stephen Holt, chairman of the Parkmount Community Association, said: "We are concerned that another building in the community has been demolished.

"This money could have gone to other projects."

Another resident, who did not want to be named, said: "It’s a massive waste of money. It was a nice building. All that money to turn it green – it’s disgusting."

The council bought the pub in March and considered making it available to a charity which runs the newly-built Factory Youth Zone next door.

But the charity, called Onside North West, did not have sufficient funds to buy or upgrade the building. A council spokesman said: "The former Golden Tavern pub had been closed for some time and was blighting a priority regeneration area in Harpurhey.

"Given the council’s land interests around the Factory Youth Zone and the need to support future regeneration opportunities, buying the pub was an ideal opportunity to tackle this blight and support ongoing improvements in the area.

"Consideration was also given to incorporating the existing building into the Factory Youth Zone but this proved impractical, so demolition has gone ahead. There has been no cost to council taxpayers for the purchase and demolition of the Golden Tavern. The cost is being met entirely through grants secured for this purpose."

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