Islington Council has voted to refer the proposed sale of Berthold Lubetkin’s Finsbury Health Centre to health secretary Alan Johnson, raising hopes that the grade I listed building could yet be retained for healthcare use.

Meeting late last week, the council’s health and wellbeing scrutiny committee discussed Islington Primary Care Trust’s decision to sell the building and relocate services, and voted unanimously in favour of referring the move to the Department of Health.

Campaigners hailed the surprise move as vital reprieve for the building.

“It’s a huge boost,” said Save Finsbury Health Centre campaigner Barb Jacobson. “The review committee said the PCT shouldn’t do anything until this [review has] gone through. So it blocks all these services relocating and blocks the move to sell the building.”

Finsbury Health Centre has provided public health services – including physiotherapy, dentistry, speech and language therapy, and two GP practices – for Islington residents for more than 70 years, preceding the creation of the National Health Service.

The campaign to prevent the sale of the building has attracted the support of former culture secretary Chris Smith, campaign group Architects for Health, and former RIBA president Maxwell Hutchinson.

Activists presented a 1,800-signature petition to health secretary Alan Johnson earlier this year.

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