The town's Jehovah's Witnesses are among five bids currently being considered by developer Matt McCloskey.

"There has been interest in using it as office space and individuals who wanted to turn it into a pub or restaurant," he said.

"Someone wanted to have the whole lot as a house, but that would take a lot of pound notes."

Mr McCloskey, who bought the listed building as part of a deal with Cheshire County Council, plans to sell the property by Christmas when the library closes.

But this week there were calls for it to be turned into a museum.

Clr Barbara Austin said it was ideal.

"Lots of people have old memorabilia in their cupboards and want to give it to someone," she said.

"We get schoolchildren coming from all over to look into Knutsford's history."

Yesterday, Mr McCloskey said he would let the politicians decide whether they thought a museum was a good idea.

"The difficulty would be getting anybody to promise revenue funding for that sort of thing," he said.