COLWALL Parish Council has written to Prince Charles to ask if his Duchy Originals company would be interested in taking over Malvern Water.

The famous bottling plant in the village stopped production suddenly in November 2010, with owners, Coca Cola saying the business was not competitive enough in the market.

Coca Cola announced its intention to sell the site for residential development. However there have been calls for it to try and sell the business as a going concern, and local businessman Robert Day and William Chase, of Tyrells crisps, have both expressed an interest.

John Mills, vice chairman of Colwall Parish Council, hopes Duchy Originals might be interested in Malvern Water.

“It's a natural product, it's organic, it's the sort of thing that Duchy Originals would do, and Prince Charles is the head man of that,” he said. “Purportedly Malvern Water is his mother's favourite, and so we though it was a natural thing to ask them if they were interested.”

The council has also approached English Heritage to see if any of the buildings on the site, which dates back to 1892, merit listed status.

Coun Mills believes the situation is “certainly looking more positive” than it was a few months ago.

“We thought originally that the matter was conducted with indecent haste, and our objective was to make sure that nothing was done too quickly or that nothing was knocked down overnight,” he said. “We wanted other people to have the opportunity to take it on if it was viable and I think people are now being given that opportunity.

“Coca Cola obviously didn’t think it was viable as a going concern but we will have to see if other people think that they can put the numbers together.”