A land bank acquired by Advantage West Midlands is to be handed over to a national quango, despite pleas from local business leaders and councillors.

Eric Pickles, the Local Government Secretary, has ordered that most of the assets be transferred to the Homes and Communities Agency.

The Government body will seize control of prime sites including 23.1 hectares of land at the old MG Rover plant at Longbridge, Birmingham, 3.04 hectares surrounding Edgbaston Cricket Ground and the i54 business park in South Staffordshire, near Wolverhampton.

It means ministers have rejected pleas from councillors and Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), the bodies bringing together local politicians and business leaders, for the sites to remain in local control.

However, the Government has pledged that the assets will be developed by the agency to achieve “intended benefits to local communities” – ending fears that they would simply be sold off.

The assets were purchased by AWM, the regional development agency, as part of a £180 million property spending spree.

But the agency, effectively a regional arm of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, has been shut down by the Government as it dismantles the regional structures built up by Labour.

It has been replaced by LEPs, which are designed to place economic development in the hands of locally-elected politicians and local business leaders.

The Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP had been pushing ministers to let it take control of the assets.

And ministers have announced that land in London, purchased by the capital’s regional development agency, will simply be transferred to a body controlled by London mayor Boris Johnson.

But Mr Pickles has now declared that most development agency assets in other parts of the country will be “transferred to Housing and Communities Agency to develop out”.