Southwark Council will work with popular gay nightclub XXL to find it a new home in the borough as it faces closure to make way for a £1.3bn apartment, hotel and office development, a top councillor has said.

XXL operates from the Pulse club in railway arches near Blackfriars Bridge, which are going to be redeveloped along with the adjacent Ludgate House and Sampson House sites.

The club, which is the borough’s last LGBT+ venue, has been served with a three-month eviction notice after losing a court appeal.

But a council spokesman said the authority would do what it could to find the venue a new home, after the club owner met with Cllr Johnson Situ and the head of planning.

Cllr Situ said the meeting was positive.

He said: “We are incredibly proud of both our LGBT+ community and our local night life so we are keen to work with the club to try and do all we can to help keep it in the borough.

“We have had a constructive and positive meeting with its owner and will be using all the tools at the council’s disposal to find a positive way forward.”

In a Facebook post last week, club owners pleaded for support to save the venue as  the city continues to lose its LGBT spaces.

“When we close in 3 months time, London will have lost almost 75 per cent of its LGBTQ+ venues within a 5 year period. We have pleaded with Southwark, the Mayors office and Native Land to help us and to work with us and it has fallen on deaf ears,” it read.

A petition to save the club has close to 1500 signatures.

Since 2006 the borough has lost two out of its three LGBT+ venues.

This is “significant”, according to a Mayor of London report, given the “important community and neighbourhood functions of LGBTQ+ venues”.

The new development will include towers rising to 34 storeys with 489 apartments, a hotel, offices and shops.