A homeless centre should be included within plans for new City of York Council's offices rather than demolished.

That is the verdict of a former York Minster officer who played a key role in setting up the Peasholme Centre, currently in Peasholme Green.

Council bosses have decided to relocate the centre to 4 Fishergate to allow the Hungate development - including new £30 million council offices - to proceed.

But Ralph Mayland who was the Canon Treasurer of York Minster from January 1982 to April 1994, is calling on the authority to work with the existing facility rather than relocating.

"Why demolish?" he wrote in a letter to The Press. "With the professional expertise of the architects, it is within their competence to incorporate the Peasholme Centre within the seemingly necessary new council offices. It could become a state-of-the-art living example for another first for York."

Historically, the former premises in Kent Street and then Brunswick Terrace Hostel "were all that York could offer those in need of shelter", he explained.

In 1982, Mr Mayland helped prepare a meal for the first 24 who had queued up for bed spaces.

The inadequacies of the Brunswick Terrace Hostel led him to make a special visit to Social Services headquarters in Leeds to discuss the future of caring.

An all-purpose centre was planned, leading to the launch of the Peasholme Centre.

"This was a piece of work which took four to five years to achieve through many bureaucratic minefields with setbacks and disappointments involving many concerned people," he said.

"It is tragic to think that after a mere 20 years of excellent service, the present Peasholme Centre has to be moved. I do not think that adapting another building will do when one knows of the design care which went into the planning."

However, Bill Hodson, the council's director of housing and adult services, said the Peasholme facilities were "a huge step forward" 20 years ago but "have not kept up with modern expectations".

He said the new centre, at Fishergate, would not simply be a refurbishment of existing buildings, but a new-build solution designed to modern standards that will meet the needs of the occupants.

"When Peasholme opened, customers didn't have an electricity socket in their room and were not expected to have access to their rooms during the day."

He said Peasholme's role had also changed from being a direct access hostel to focusing more on helping people move on to more permanent accommodation quite quickly.

"Moving to a new location gives us the chance to design improvements into the new building that would be difficult in the current location. This is an opportunity to build on the success of the past."