Demolition approved for Perth city hall

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Demolition approved for Perth city hall

Postby kevinashe » 16 Nov 2011, 20:28

This majestic building which faces the main indoor shopping centre,has been approved for demolition by the local council.It will have to go to another body first though as its currently listed-I thought EAS would be interested as its quite a historic and beautiful building.Heres a link to the full story
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-t ... l-15742937
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Postby 1234567890 » 17 Nov 2011, 16:51

:x mad,mad,mad, who on earth would want to Demolish that,maad
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Postby EAS » 17 Nov 2011, 23:07

Yes I know all about it. Scottish Government will have the final say. It seems there's quite lot in the report to the council which was pie in the sky.
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Postby EAS » 17 Nov 2011, 23:23

City Hall and voodoo economics

Nov 15 2011 Perthshire Advertiser Tuesday

Dear Editor, – As Jim Provan and others have pointed out, the economic benefits claimed by the Council for creating a civic square in place of the City Hall do not bear close examination. They are based on assumptions, heaped one on top of the other, which make the conclusions entirely unreliable.

How can it be, for example, that a square resulting from complete demolition will produce 210,000 added visitors per year whereas the partial demolition alternative – which is only 11% smaller - will produce only 100,000? It is surely easier to believe that the front part of the existing building could accommodate uses – e.g. tourist information and heritage displays – which would be more interesting to visitors than the same area laid bare.

The arithmetic becomes even more fanciful if one looks at the activities they are relying on to produce additional revenue. One of these is ice skating. The proposition is that skating could take place over a five week period and it will generate an income of £177,300 for expenditure of £127,000 resulting in a surplus of £50,300 per year.

The underlying assumptions are that the cost per skate would be £7.50 and there would be 675 skaters per day. For alternative options, simply throw a dice and reject the numbers that don’t fit the desired outcome.




Instead of theorising, the consultants and officers of the Council could have looked no farther than Edinburgh for a working example of what they had in mind. The outdoor rink near the Scott Monument was referred to recently in the Glasgow Herald (18/11/11) under the headline “Christmas ice rink faces axe as operator reveals it suffered loss.” The article explains that this facility was started in 1998 and now has a deficit which cannot be funded by the public purse. Councillor Gordon Munro is quoted as saying: “We are already a quarter of a million down from the ice rink so I would be most surprised if the Council supported it.”

Although I have personally supported the idea of a square – albeit with the retention of the front part of the City Hall – I have become disillusioned by the Council’s silly notions of making something more akin to a funfair than a civic space. They have even taken to calling it an amphitheatre within which Big Wheels, concerts and sports activities will make life unbearable for the people who live in and near it. The report the officers submitted to the committee this week contains no assessment, as it should have, of the effect these ideas will have on surrounding residential properties. It is an established planning principle that it is one thing for people to make a home, by choice, beside an existing nuisance but quite another to have a new one thrust upon them.

As a town centre resident I accept, as normal, the noise and drunkenness that occurs at least four nights a week outside my flat and I have never objected to a single application for new licensed premises. They go with the territory. However, like all residents who have made similar choices, I am entitled to expect a greater separation from outdoor entertainment programmes than the Council’s proposals would allow. It is clear that neither the officers nor the elected members have given any thought to the conflicts inherent in their amphitheatre idea.

On a visit to San Francisco many years ago I read in a local paper that the City Council had asked for a report from their Director of Planning on how they could plan the city to increase the number of visitors. The Director, very wisely, said re-shaping the city to attract visitors was the wrong way to go about things. They should, rather, “plan the city to be beautiful and suit our own needs and, if we do it right, the visitors will come to enjoy it too.” It is deeply disappointing that our Council has been less thoughtful and has so readily embraced the idea that a square in place of the City Hall could ever be a “must see” visitor attraction. They have, in fact, destroyed the case for one with overblown rhetoric about it ranking “with the best in Europe” and using income projections of the type that got Greece into the Eurozone.

Denis Munro,

Beaumont House,

St. John’s Place,

Perth.

PH1 5SZ.
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Postby EAS » 17 Nov 2011, 23:24

City Hall D-Day

Nov 15 2011 by Gordon Bannerman, Perthshire Advertiser Tuesday

FORMER Perth and Kinross Council chief executive Jim Cormie has fired an angry broadside at successors heading-up the local authority, with councillors set to seal the fate of the long-empty Perth City Hall today (Wednesday).

The listed building could be doomed to demolition, with the council promoting its own blueprint to demolish the long-vacant Edwardian building and create a civic square.

But Mr Cormie, a vociferous critic of the current chief executive Bernadette Malone and her senior team, yesterday branded their handling of the City Hall saga “a total disgrace”.

He labelled it “a sorry tale of stupidity, incompetence and duplicity.”




Mr Cormie has also written to the council’s legal chief Ian Innes demanding that development control convenor Councillor Willie Wilson removes himself from the debate after pinning his colours firmly to the demolition mast in a summer newspaper article.

“Councillor Wilson has compromised his impartiality by making a public statement about a pending planning decision which prejudges the decision which will be made at the meeting.

“This is a particularly serious transgression of the Standards Commission for Scotland Code of Conduct for Councillors because he is the convenor.”

Mr Cormie mounted a wide-ranging assault on the council’s handling of the City Hall affair.

He said: “The first disgrace is that matters of such importance to the town are just routine items on the Development Control Committee agenda – alongside such things as ‘alterations and refurbishment of Wash House at Scotlandwell’.

“The second disgrace is that these matters are coming before the Development Control Committee at all.

“Major matters like these, which have such far-reaching consequences not only for Perth but for the whole of Perth and Kinross, should be debated by the whole of the council at a Special Council Meeting held in a venue where attendance by the public is not severely restricted.

In this case, a very suitable venue would be Perth City Hall itself.

“The third disgrace is that the demolition of the City Hall is preceded on the agenda of the Development Control Committee by the application for the construction of their new city square.

“In other words, the officials are arrogantly assuming that approval of the demolition of the City Hall will automatically be granted since that is essential for the construction of the square.

“The fourth disgrace is the report by the development quality manager – what quality– to the committee which, apart from being full of superfluous padding, is clearly designed to appeal to the political administration on the council which is hell bent on total demolition.

“The report is so full of holes, false statements and half truths that it is simply not worth the large volume of paper on which it is written.”

Mr Cormie continued: “A statement that re-using the building is not feasible is rubbish – as is the completely untrue statement in the official’s report that ‘no other private sector developer has come forward with a formal proposal for an alternative use for the City Hall.’

“Mr Vivian Linacre has put forward a really excellent scheme to regenerate the building at no cost to the council to provide an open market place on three levels flanked by retail or display galleries around a central atrium, together with a new Visitor Centre and shop promoting the City of Perth and the Perth and Kinross region.

“The eminent architects Simpson and Brown have sent details of their scheme to the council and in October Mr Linacre wrote to them stating he was ready to enter into discussions and requesting an early meeting to discuss the matter to agree essential terms and conditions to enable funding to be put in place.

“There has been no response to this approach so what price ‘re-using the building not being feasible’ and ‘no other private sector developer has come forward.’ This is simply lies!”

Friday’s PA incorrectly stated that plans put forward by a consortium headed up by Marshall Place businessman Vivian Linacre to create a “Perth City Market” would also go before the development control committee on Wednesday.

We would like to apologise for any confusion this mistake caused.



http://www.perthshireadvertiser.co.uk
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Postby EAS » 17 Nov 2011, 23:28

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Postby kevinashe » 18 Nov 2011, 19:26

Firstly sorry eas for posting in the wrong place.The idea of a food market in an area that used to have many specialist shops would be fantastic.What annoys me that at one side of this majectic building are an area of unsightly mainly empty buildings also slightly further over next to one of the churches is a building (possibly an old car showroom and workshops and other parts)which used to be a large toyshop and hasnt been occupied since the 90s.In my opinion these areas need tidied up first or put a smaller civic square there.Hopefully this crazy idea gets kicked into touch soon,eas if you hear anything or anything about the group trying to save it then i am willing to lend support (emails,phonecalls etc)
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Postby Jim Douglas Jr. » 04 Dec 2011, 21:28

The reason nobody builds like this any more is that it's cost prohibitive. It makes no sense to tear something down that could be used and would cost exponentially more to ever replace.
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Postby kevinashe » 08 Dec 2011, 19:22

I am also trying to save a local school building (now unused),the local council now want to demolish a lovely sandstone building and replace it with faceless flats
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Postby derekf » 31 Mar 2012, 23:24

it is just so sad that old historical structures like that would be demolished because along with that goes a piece of history that the future generation might never know of. I do hope that they could jut preserve the structures and use it for other useful means that way they will still be able to preserve the historical value.
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Postby EAS » 09 May 2012, 10:56

Ferengi Rules of Acquisition: Rule 76. Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the hell out of your enemies.
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Postby kevinashe » 09 May 2012, 18:12

good news all round!!!!!
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Postby EAS » 09 May 2012, 20:17

http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/per ... y-2012.pdf

Docs.

"A total of 250 representations have been received by Historic Scotland since the application was lodged with Perth & Kinross Council. Of those, 240 are opposed to demolition, 9 are in favour and 1 remains undecided."

I love the undecided!
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