Proposals to demolish Perth City Hall are afoot again as the City’s Councillors again seek permission from the Scottish government to pull the building down, while some legal interests highlight the complex nature of the legislative arguments that might be attached to the proposal, including issues of curtilage.
The BBC writes:
Councillors in Perth have voted in favour of demolishing the city’s civic hall.
It came after a sole bid to redevelop the unused category B listed building as an indoor food market was rejected by officials last month.
The local authority announced in 2011 that they were minded to demolish the Edwardian hall and create a new civic square in its place.
However, their plans were blocked by Historic Scotland last year.
Councillors will now seek the Scottish government’s permission to pull down the building.
The city hall, erected in 1911, has lain unused since a modern concert hall was opened in the city eight years ago.
Last year Historic Scotland instructed the local authority to find a developer to save the building rather than demolish it.
That process resulted in only one proposal – to create an indoor market in the space.
The council tasked property firm Jones Lang Lasalle with examining the feasibility of the proposal.
Its report concluded that the plan would require public money and was unsustainable.
Online legal journal ‘The Firm’ writes of ‘The Legal Spat brewing over Perth’s City Hall’ with an extract as follows:
An interesting legal spat appears to be developing in the fair city of Perth, where councillors have voted to demolish a B listed Edwardian concert hall which government regulator Historic Scotland insists should be preserved. I don’t know whether the bookies are taking bets on the final outcome, but they certainly ought to be.
It isn’t simply the future of a building that’s at stake here – it’s the credibility of Historic Scotland as a regulatory authority, and the likelihood that a precedent will be set for other councils which are minded to wipe out similar B listed buildings the length and breadth of the country if Perth City Hall’s final curtain call becomes a reality.
Product number one in this ill-tempered stramash is the building itself – and here one struggles to find a reason to explain the council’s determination to get rid of it. The architects, Clifford and Lunan, were exponents of the French Beaux-Arts style, and their entry to the 1912 architectural competition was undoubtedly a worthy winner. This is a classy looking structure which, were it in Paris’s 7th Arrondissement or the Upper East Side of New York, would undoubtedly be a cherished heritage asset with an assured future. It may have been abandoned, but it was built to last, and it is structurally sound. The rational for demolishing it would appear to be that Perth’s municipal visionaries have it in mind to clear the site as a ‘Plaza’ for the public’s enjoyment, presumably in the manner of Edinburgh’s hopelessly underused and flyblown Festival Square, which resembles nothing so much as an old East European military parade ground bereft of its tanks and jackboots….
… The upshot of this bizarre affair is that we shouldn’t be simply seeking a solution for the problem of Perth City Hall – a problem which the council itself largely created. The Scottish ministers should also launch an inquiry into Perth and Kinross Council’s activities and transactions in this case, and if matters of misconduct or malfeasance arise, they should be dealt with. Otherwise, every historic listed building in Scotland will be at risk.
The Firm article: LINK
BBC News: LINK
