KNUTSFORD War Memorial campaigner Charlotte Peters Rock presented a 4,000-name petition on Thursday opposing the sale and proposed demolition of the memorial.

Charlotte leads the Knutsford and District War Memorial Neighbourhood Forum, which was set up in an attempt to safeguard the memorial.

Memorial House is earmarked for demolition as part of a proposed McCarthy and Stone retirement home development.

The petition contains 4,248 signatures, and was presented at a meeting of the full Cheshire East Council.

Charlotte told the Guardian there were 167 comments objecting to the sale and proposed demolition ( reference 18/0089M) on Cheshire East Council’s planning portal, with only three in favour of demolition.

She told Thursday’s meeting: “We, the current residents of the parishes to whom the land was gifted and covenanted, for ‘only the purpose’ of building in the style of a cottage hospital, our Knutsford and District War Memorial, urgently petition the full support of Cheshire East councillors, of all political persuasions, to prevent the sale or demolition of this vital community asset.

“As the natural inheritors of the duty towards this asset, we need it back.

“In late 2015 we heard that it was up for sale. It is now up for sale for demolition.

“We invite you to aid us – preventing such a desecration of our right of remembrance of those who served this country, our right to own, as a community, our own gifted and covenanted land, [and] our right to this fine War Memorial building, wisely chosen to serve this community’s needs in perpetuity.

“Largely non-belligerent young men left this community to do their ‘duty for King and country’. Many never returned, some have no known grave, yet this community, all classes working together in shock and grief and loss, managed over decades to fund this wonderful Memorial – and aid – to those men.

“A finer community asset could not possibly be imagined.

“We petition your full support Mr Mayor, and that of all councillors, to bring to community safety our Knutsford and District War Memorial, its gifted and covenanted land, the right of this community to remembrance of its own war dead, education of its young, and the property which its own residents built to preserve that memory.”