A once thriving community centre which was forced to close is set to be revived after a lucrative £800,000 deal with Merton Council.

The Wimbledon Community Association (WCA), who ran their centre from the Sir Cyril Black Centre in St George’s Road, Wimbledon, closed last year because they were unable to keep up with the cost of maintaining the post war building.

Merton Council has now bought the group's stake in the building, worth £816,000, freeing WCA to use the funds to secure a new premises.

The location of any potential sites have not yet been disclosed, however trustees have said it is likely to involve partnering with an existing organisation.

David Hall, a trustee of the WCA, said: "We think it’s important to keep the organisation going and to ensure that there’s some continuing community facility dating back to the original objectives of the organisation.

"Clearly things change over time but we need to research what that resource could be."

"The likelyhood is that it is going to be with an existing partner because of the resources we have to spend and because that won’t get us much in central Wimbledon.

"But there are various options that we will be looking at."

The deal was struck after complicated legal arrangements dating back to the hall’s early development when it was co-owned by Wimbledon Borough Council, Surrey County Council and WCA members, were untangled allowing Merton Council to become the £2.4m site's sole owners.

Mr Hall said: "The freehold was in the council’s favour but there was a complicated set of legal arrangements to sort out.

"It indicated that if the property was ever sold then the charity got a one third interest and that is what we had to negotiate."

The group is planning to send a questionnaire to previous users to find out what their needs for a new centre might be.

Mr Hall said: "We want to ensure facilities meet their needs so we can look to factor that into our future plan."

Merton Council, now the two-storey centre's owners, has already approved its own plan to demolish the building so it can be used as a temporary 19-space car park up until May 21, 2016.