Brontë home to become bistro, campaigners fear The stone terraced house in the village of Thornton near Bradford, west Yorkshire, sold to a private developer last week for around £100,000 after the local council refused to step in in times of austerity. Steve Stanworth, chairman of the Brontë Birthplace Trust, believes its new owner plans a commercial use. "I understand its been bought by a local businessman and I think he is going to turn it into a bistro" he said Andrew Thornton, the council's executive member for environment, said: "We were not satisfied that this was a justifiable use of public money or a reasonable intervention for us to make." He blamed Government cuts and a squeeze on available grants. The Brontë Birthplace Trust group have vowed to continue their campaign and will bide their time until it comes on the market again. Efforts to make the house into a heritage centre have a history of failure. In 1996 the Heritage Lottery Fund rejected an application for a £500,000 grant. Novelist Barbara Whitehead, bought and renovated it in an 1820s style, but visitor numbers were low but her failing health forced her to sell 2007. Today it is unoccupied and thought to have suffered from flooding.