AN application may be lodged for special heritage status to be removed from Brent Town Hall.

Councillor Paul Lorber, leader of Brent Council, this week raised the idea of having the building taken off the English Heritage's Listed Buildings list as plans move forward to build a new civic centre.

He said: “I am very supportive of the trust recognising important buildings. But what is so particularly peculiar or special about this place?

“There is some interest in getting the building delisted, and this is something we may look at.”

The council is hoping to leave the Grade II listed town hall, in Forty Lane, and move to a new and modern civic centre which will be built close to Wembley Stadium.

A plot of land in Engineers Way was bought by the council last year, and it is close to choosing a design team to create plans for the new centre.

Cllr Lorber said: “This project is actually going to drive efficiency and value for money, because what we pay in loans and charges will replace what we pay at the moment in rent.”

The town hall was listed by English Heritage in 1990, and is noted for its “severe Scandinavian style three-storey front” and is hailed as “an example of simple but effective 1930s municipal planning.”

It has marble floors and walls in the entrance hall, and art deco railings running along the main internal staircase.

When it was opened in 1940, the Architectural Review described the town hall as “the best of the modern town halls around London, neither fanciful nor drab”, but it is now viewed as inefficient, and ill-suited to the workings of a contemporary council.

Cllr Lorber suggested the building could be turned into an educational establishment or a hotel, but those ideas could be thwarted if any development is restricted by the listed status.

To de-list a building, an application has to be made to the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport, pointing out why it should no longer have special protection.