A Conservative club gutted by fire during the Bradford riots is ready to rise from the ashes.

Members of Girlington Conservative Club are waiting to hear after they submitted plans for a new club to Bradford Council's planning committee.

The club's old building in Roundthorn Place, off Thornton Road, was destroyed when yobs hurled a petrol bomb through a window during the riots on July 7 last year.

Spiralling insurance costs meant it could not afford to build on the same plot and for more than six months its members struggled to find an alternative location.

GCC president David Parrott even suggested an unlikely alliance with the Manningham Ward Labour Club, which was also burnt to the ground by rioters, in a bid to find a suitable site.

But after the Telegraph & Argus highlighted their plight, a property agent offered a suitable site. Eventually a deal was struck with the club.

If planning permission is granted, work on a £400,000 building on a new site next to Fairweather Green fire station in Thornton Road, at the junction with Leaventhorpe Lane, Leaventhorpe, could begin this summer.

Mr Parrott said: "We are looking to start building as soon as possible, providing we get permission. Our members voted unanimously in favour of the relocation at our annual general meeting.

"The location is actually better for us as it's on a bus route and many of the 150 members are towards the older end of the scale.

"It's very handy that the fire station's so close, just in case there's another blaze.

"If everything goes to plan we'd hope to have the new club up and running by October.

"I'd like to thank the Telegraph & Argus for all its help in finding us a new site."

Mr Parrott said the new club would be especially welcome for a hard-core of about 30 members who have met at St William's Church Hall, in Ingleby Road, on Thursdays and Sundays since their old meeting place was destroyed.

Former club secretary Harry Martin said: "The club is 114 years old and it would have celebrated its 100th anniversary on the site at Roundthorn Close in January had it not been for the riots."