WILTSHIRE Council has delayed marketing the Grade II* listed Urchfont Manor to allow community groups to have their say on the sale.

There was an outcry when the council announced in January that it was closing the adult residential college.

The college is due to close in September and no bookings are being taken for courses or events after the summer. The council said that the estate would be marketed from the end of April.

But that time frame has been put back a month and it will now be put on the market in mid to late June.

A council spokesman said: “We are taking time to listen to community groups.”

The council received dozens of letters and emails objecting to the closure of the college and its sale, from students past and present as well as Urchfont parish council and residents of the village.

A bid was put in by the sons of former deputy warden Tom Barklem, who had put together “substantial” funding for the purchase.

Nigel Barklem told the Gazette this week: “I have had a letter from Wiltshire Council to say that they are going out to tender with estate agents and they will pass on my interest to whichever one is successful. The longer they leave it, the less viable it will be.”

Wiltshire Council has launched a consultation exercise on the future of adult education in the light of the closure of the college.