The council has come under fire for not pressing ahead faster with converting a decaying 100-year-old chapel into a much-needed community centre.

The unoccupied Horton Chapel, which was part of Horton Hospital in the Epsom Cluster, was acquired by Epsom and Ewell Council in 2004.

After failing to lease it out in 2006 it earmarked the building to become a community centre. 

In 2009, the council decided a community development trust would be created to take over the building for a "viable community facility" to be established.

But Labour Councillor Dan Stevens, a member of the Horton Chapel working group which is overseeing the process, is frustrated at the lack of concrete progress since then.

He said: "The building is empty and deteriorating, and there are many potential groups who might want to use it.  We don’t have enough community buildings in the borough and some of them are closing.

"If we want to build stronger communities we need to do it."

A timetable for the process was presented to councillors at a meeting of the strategy and resources committee on September 25, which the chairman, Councillor Neil Dallen, said was a positive step forward.

According to the timetable, a lease will be granted by the council for the use of Horton Chapel as a community centre by September 2014.

Coun Dallen said: "We now have something to measure ourselves against.  It’s a big project and the council wants the residents to pick it up and run with it.

"Making it a community project will also keep down the costs and make it more viable."

But Coun Stevens said a timetable could have been formulated many months ago.

He said: "Although we're now edging closer to establishing the community development trust, there has not yet been any proper engagement exercise with the public.

"We now have some target dates to work towards in the future, but I'm still unaware of any substantive progress towards the final goal. 

"We could have reached this stage many months ago had the Residents’ Association made a firm commitment to delivering this project.

"We're still a very long way from where we could be and the urgent priority has to be preserving the building in its current state to ensure it doesn't fall into even further disrepair."