The owner of a popular Penryn climbing wall threatened with closure by plans for student housing is looking to a similar accommodation scheme to save his business.

Tony Windo, who has run Granite Planet on the Parkengue Kernick Industrial Estate for eight years, is expecting notice to quit from his landlord John Lewis Partnership Pension Trust, which recently submitted a pre-application request to demolish his site and put up student housing.

However he has been offered space at another mixed use student and business site which is being proposed by developers Irregular Cornwall for the former Home Shed site on Kernick Road.

Mr Windo has thrown his support behind the Irregular plans, which could save his business and 17 full and part time jobs, and has also asked customers to do the same.

He said: “Being able to move would enable us to continue trading. If we can’t transfer to that unit, we have nowhere else to go. This really is our last chance.”

“Our customers have been very loyal and without them backing us, life would have been made even more difficult.”

Mr Windo said he had spent tens of thousands of pounds and hundreds of hours turning the current building into the climbing centre, which is used by more than 100 local organisations, and he was due to begin a further upgrade to double the height of the walls when he was could lose the site.

He said of the Home Shed site: “This is not just a question of an industrial unit being changed into a playground. It’s a detailed masterplan incorporating a health centre, much needed student accommodation, and with us as part of the mix, providing leisure facilities. It will also create a lot of jobs and so I would encourage councillors to look at the application favourably.”

Among 59 online comments supporting the Irregular is one by Thomas Auld of Falmouth, who wrote: “I fully support the planning proposal, by moving forward... Granite Planet is able to maintain its trading and a number of jobs are protected, not to mention the new jobs that will be created by the development of the surgery and the centre in the future.

“The new student accommodation will bring new life to the Penryn area rather than building on the already thriving student population in Falmouth. Overall the centre and this proposal are an asset to the community as they maintain trade and a healthy youth population.”

It has also raised nine objections, mainly by business owners and others who are concerned about the loss of current industrial space if Irregular's full #masterplan' takes over units on nearby Jennings Road.

The first phase of Irregular's plans would see a mixed use space including 264 student beds, with mixed business use including space for Granite Planet and Penryn Surgery to relocate, while a second phase would increase the student accommodation still further, with more mixed business space.

The first phase also includes 66 parking spaces, 13 of which would be for student use, along with bike parking for students.