The decision to no longer hold weddings in Morden Park House has been put on hold.

The site of Merton's register office, the Grade 2 listed building was recently restored using £1.8 million worth of funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

But plans to scrap those services and move the "I do's" to the Civic Centre were on the cards as a way for the council to "save money."

“Unfortunately, it's increasingly clear the registry office is losing significant sums of council taxpayers' money," Councillor Mark Allison, cabinet member for finance said.

"So we have suggested moving out the services we provide there from 2021, so that the much-loved building can be put to other uses."

Documents attached to the plans said that the closure would have saved the council £78,000 in that year.

But that decision will be reviewed following a recommendation from the cross-party scrutiny panel to revisit the proposal.

Councillor Nick McLean, who was at the scrutiny meeting, said: "It was clear that Labour didn’t have a clue about how important Morden Park House is to this community, and had no idea about the amount of money the registry office generates.

"We were able to hold Labour to account and prevent this act of cultural vandalism which would have been a huge loss to our borough.”

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Councillor David Williams, shadow cabinet ,ember for finance, echoed those sentiments.

“We said from the start that this would not save any money and would harm Merton," he said.

"It's great news for Merton that Labour have backed down, and that this much used, and much needed facility has been saved from Labour’s senseless cuts.”

But time may still be called on the register office, as the proposal is now on the agenda to be discussed by the Cabinet on February 18.

"The scrutiny commission have asked us to reconsider as they wanted to see more financial details, and we are happy to put the proposal on hold until they have had a good chance to look at them, including analysis on the panel’s suggestion that we should charge considerably more for services like weddings to help reduce the losses," Mr Allison added.

"However, as a businesslike council we cannot continue to lose so much money at a time when the Conservatives are cutting funding for the council by so much and when other services we provide, like care for our older people and children, desperately need funding.”