Leader: Latest chapter in Shrewsbury flax mill tale

Ditherington Flax Mill should be a jewel in the crown for Shrewsbury. Instead it has become a millstone around the town's neck.

It is hailed as a building of international importance, a forerunner of modern skyscrapers and a structure that changed the world of construction and design. Yet it has become something close to an embarrassment. Less kind Salopians might use another e-word. Eyesore.

There have been grand schemes and dreams, but after the fanfares have died down and the costings have been totted up, nothing has happened.

People in Shrewsbury will not, then, be getting too excited about today's news that the Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded £465,300 to develop more detailed regeneration plans for the building. There will be a weary sense of deja vu. We have seen lots of plans. And the fact that it is costing so much just to develop plans makes you shudder at what the cost will be of actually doing anything.

The flax mill is a huge building and nothing is going to come cheap.

However, today's news should be viewed in the context of getting a foot in the door of the bank. A cash pot of £11.7 million will be the prize if a second round bid to the HLF is successful. That really would make a difference and mean that the old maltings could be brought back into use for the benefit of the community.

Things are at least moving again. If the follow-up bid fails, it will be a severe blow and there will be a difficult decision to be made over whether spending anything more is justified.

There have been too many false dawns for the flax mill.

To adapt a quote from the movie Clockwise: Shrewsbury can cope with despair. It is the hope it can't stand.