WORK to resurrect an Eastleigh town centre landmark building which had become a blot on the landscape is forging ahead.

Controversy over the future of the Grade II listed former Church of the Resurrection had raged for years following a disastrous fire in 1985 which left the building badly damaged and without a roof.

Civic chiefs were adamant that the former parish church should remain part of the local heritage and kicked out plans in 1988 to replace it with a block of offices.

It wasn't until Eastleigh Housing Association stepped in with a novel scheme to build 25 flats around the inside of the shell of the building - which dates from 1868 - that it seemed the old church had a future.

Now work is well under way to turn a £2.5m redevelopment scheme into reality.

It has taken about three months to clear the inside of the church and lay ground-floor slabs in preparation for a steel frame to go up inside the old building.

Eastleigh Housing Association project manager Simon Corp told the Daily Echo: "It was in a very poor state. It was very overgrown, there was a rat infestation and there were several inches of pigeon droppings."

Now work is about to start on the internal steel frame that will ensure that the old walls of the former church will not bear any weight.

Pat Shelley, services director of Eastleigh Housing Association parent group, Atlantic Housing said: "It will be like a building within a building effectively.

"The steel frame will allow us to retain as much of the exterior as we can."

A completion date has been earmarked for April 2004 and the housing scheme will provide 20 flats offered at market rent, plus five for social housing. Two are designed to wheelchair standards.

Mr Shelley said "target" tenants for the 20 market rent flats would be police, health and education workers in a bid to boost the local infrastructure.

He also told the Daily Echo that £500,000 recently awarded to the scheme by the Housing Corporation would help reduce rents for the key workers.