A housing development could provide money to refurbish a distinctive and historic landmark.
Airship hangars at Cardington are in line for refurbishment
The new homes are to be built on land close to the Cardington Hangars, built in the 1920s, in Bedfordshire.
These were built to house giant airships such as the R101 which crashed and caught fire in France in 1930.
The hangars need refurbishment at an estimated cost of £6m. The required money could come from the sale of land to a housing developer.
This scheme has won the backing of local people who opposed a proposal to build an industrial warehouse.
Residents in nearby Shortstown objected to the warehouse project because of the possibility of hundreds of lorries passing through their village every day.
Frontier Estates which owns the land and one of the hangars has applied for planning permission to develop it into housing.
If the application is successful money raised will go towards refurbishing the Grade 2 listed shed number one.
Building work could start in the latter half of next year and work on the hangar is expected to take 18 months.