The owner of a derelict music and dance venue in Bradford has criticised planners for blocking his efforts to regenerate the eyesore site.

Javed Ahmed Majid claims the district could be about to miss out on a multi-million-pound investment because Bradford Council’s planning department “point blank refused” his latest plan for the former Town and Country club in Manningham Lane.

Mr Majid, owner of Cleveland-based Maher Entertainments Ltd, wanted to demolish the club – which suffered an arson attack last week – and replace it with a £9 million Asian bazaar, which would have included specialist shops and restaurants spread over five floors.

But the Council said the scheme was unacceptable, as was Mr Majid’s previous proposal to build apartments on the site. Mr Majid said that plan became unviable because of demands of Section 106 agreements where developers are asked to pay for improvements in the area to allow their schemes to go ahead.

Mr Majid said: “This has been going on for five years and I’m at the end of my tether. First of all, I wanted to build beautiful apartments there. I put this scheme together four years ago, but they put so many hurdles in the way that it made it non-viable.

“The Section 106 was going to cost me a couple of million to satisfy that.

“Then, on July 20, I went to the planning office again. I sat there and told them I had been approached by a Middle Eastern company that wants to finance the building of a top-class Asian bazaar.”

Mr Majid said the building would have included ten restaurants in a central eating area, furniture shops on the first floor, food and drink on the second floor, clothing on the third floor and jewellery and cabaret on the fourth.

Mr Majid said: “It would have been a tourist attraction for Bradford, creating at least 250 jobs. If you include the building work, it would be 400 jobs.

“It was going to be absolutely fitting for the area. But they point blank refused it. They said they want something like this in the city centre.”

John Eyles, manager of Bradford Council’s Major Development Team, said: “This piece of land is within a community priority area in our Unitary Development Plan. This means it needs to serve the local community as a community facility, housing for local needs or something which generates employment.

“His first proposal in 2006 for apartments needed a number of changes, but we could not make any progress with him in negotiations over this.

“His more recent proposal for an Asian retail market was not acceptable either.”