Councillors have given the go-ahead for ambitious plans to turn Coventry’s most famous courthouse into a café-bar, but the developers have raised a question mark over the property.

Wolverhampton and Dudley Breweries signed a contract with the City Council to take over County Hall in Bayley Lane, which is a Grade II listed building.

It was a purpose built courthouse outside which Coventry’s last public hanging took place, but it has been unused for several years.

A brewery spokesman said that even though full planning permission and listed building consent had been approved by the city council, they would need to examine the building carefully to check whether it was possible to proceed.

"We are excited by the prospect of opening a café-bar in the building, but it depends how bad some of the parts of the building are,"

said the spokesman.

County Hall was built in the late 18^th century and contains two courtrooms, the main one with a prisoners dock surrounded by wrought iron spikes and judges’ dais topped by an imposing, carved wood canopy, with the Royal Coat of Arms.

Below ground level are the cells where some of the most notorious criminals in the area were held awaiting trial.

Today Irene Shannon of the Coventry Building Preservation Trust said:

"I am horrified by this decision. I just hope now that the city council insists the building is kept in its entirety. I thought the best use would have been as a heritage centre, it is in the perfect place in the shadow of the old cathedral.

"We want our old buildings to be retained as much as possible, but we have got to find better uses for them."