FEARS that a short lease might stop a community centre in Devizes getting grants have been allayed after Wiltshire Council signed over the building for 125 years.

An extraordinary meeting of Devizes Area Board agreed the Nursteed Centre was suitable for a community asset transfer to the committee of the centre. A restriction will be in place saying the land must be used for community purposes.

Last year committee chairman Barry Mitchell spoke out about the need to get more people to use the centre and worries that there were only six years left on the lease. He said at the time: "We need to extend the lease or discuss asset transfer with the council. At the moment we get a grant from the council but pay it back more or less the same amount. If it was possible for us to take over the building that could be the way forward."

Devizes and District Association for the Disabled, which formed the centre in the 1980s, thanked the area board for granting the application and the work of those who pushed it forward.