Pendle Borough Council has paid Islamic Help £1.5m for an unused grade II listed building in the town.

The seven-acre Brierfield Mills site in Lancashire was bought by the charity from BSN Medical Ltd at the end of 2009 for just over £1m.

Islamic Help initially planned to turn the site into a boarding school for Muslim girls but faced local opposition to the plans and following a meeting with the Charity Commission in February 2010 said it planned to turn the building into its headquarters.

The council received a grant for the purchase from the government’s Homes and Communities Agency. The council has transferred the building into its joint venture company with Barnfield Investment Properties, PEARL2 and a new arm has been created to lead the regeneration.

Councillor Mike Blomeley, said: “This will now become Pendle’s flagship economic regeneration project.

“We’ll be preserving this fantastic landmark and ultimately creating hundreds of jobs over the coming years.”

No further details of the plans for the site were available but the council expects it will take up to 10 years to complete.

Islamic Help was established in 2003 and is a youth-led charity carrying out international development to tackle poverty in more than 20 countries. For the financial year end March 2011 the charity had an income of £3,102,011, most of which came from fundraising appeals. It spending was £2,693,017 with £1,748,000 going towards charitable activities which included emergency relief and orphan programmes.

No-one from the charity was available to talk to civilsociety.co.uk this morning about how they planned to spend the money.