Plans to demolish only surviving wooden huts salvaged from First World War hospital in Preston withdrawn

The city’s sea cadet corps had applied for permission from Preston Council to knock the buildings on Moor Park down.

They are boarded up and are a no-go area for young recruits even though they were home to the cadets in Strand Road for more than 80 years.

But now the proposals to demolish the huts have been withdrawn.

A spokesman for the Sea Cadet said: "Preston Sea Cadets have made the decision to pull the planning permission for their unit site as they wish to resubmit plans that ensure that the buildings heritage can be maintained.

"The unit are currently in discussions on how this can be best achieved.”

The Voluntary Aid Detachment hospital was opened on Moor Park in January 1915 - four months after the outbreak of war - to handle casualties from the trenches of the Western Front.

By the time the hospital closed in 1919 it had treated more than 3,200 wounded and traumatised soldiers.

Among them were 70 casualties from the infamous Battle of the Somme in 1916 and many more from another bloody campaign at Gallipoli.

After the war, the wooden huts were used as an open air school in the north east corner of the park until they were replaced by new premises in 1936/7.

A salvageable section of the hospital was moved to the banks of the River Ribble in Strand Road at that time to house Preston Sea Cadets.

The city’s sea cadets’ former headquarters was donated to them in 1936 and served as a home to thousands of young people more than 80 years.