Its stack of sharp, white balconies has hovered above a busy scene of public life for the last four decades, seeing 3,000 buses come and go every day. But on Monday night, the fate of Preston bus station will be sealed by the council, which will vote on whether the building should be demolished.

A startling concrete cruise liner, which married the needs of public and private transport, it was the largest bus station in Europe when it opened in 1969, with room for 40 double-deckers lined up either side of its substantial underbelly.

Five floors of car parking, each the size of two football pitches, rise serenely to form an elevation of emphatically horizontal plates, every one finished in a seductively curved cantilever. Impossibly slender, these curvaceous parapets are supported by marching lines of ribs, which, caught in the light, stand out like gleaming racks of whalebones.

Designed by Keith Ingham of the Preston-founded Building Design Partnership, and engineered by Ove Arup, it is rightly recognised as one of the country's most dramatic public buildings of its time. While its outward play of thrusting white concrete provides the lasting image, the building's interior is no less refined.

The airy ground-floor concourse – which locals say could hold three jumbo jets nose-to-tail – is still finished in its original period fittings, from the bold Helvetica signage, to the big Swiss railway-style clocks. It bares a quality of material rarely found in today's public buildings, from bespoke hardwood handrails to white tiles produced by Shaws of Darwen – of the same kind used in Harrods.

But its fate has been hanging in the balance for the last 10 years. It has twice been put forward for listing by English Heritage and the Twentieth Century Society, but both times was personally vetoed by the culture secretary.

The council argues that it faces repair costs of £5m, and a refurbishment bill of £23m, claiming it would be cheaper to demolish the bus station and build a new one from scratch. Yet there is still no detail on what would replace it.

Added last year to the World Monuments Fund's list of buildings at risk, the future of the station is being championed by both locals and experts alike, who insist that an imaginative proposal and a committed private developer could save this sublime structure and give it a viable new life. Let's hope the council has the foresight to restrain itself and hold back the wrecking ball.