New bid to save Perth City Hall

Britain’s leading heritage conservation organisation has called on the Scottish Government to hold a public inquiry into the proposed demolition of Perth City Hall.

SAVE Britain’s Heritage’s secretary, William Palin, warned that the destruction of the building would be the “worst civic loss in two decades … a return to the grim days of the 1960s and ’70s, when grand municipal buildings were going down at an alarming rate”.

The intervention came amid a growing row over the future of the Edwardian building, which Perth City Council has voted to demolish to make way for a civic square.

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In a letter to Historic Scotland, the government heritage agency, SAVE said the demolition of the B-listed building, built a century ago, was approved “without proper consideration” and should be referred to Scottish ministers in a public inquiry.

The building was of “national importance” and its destruction broke national and local planning rules on conservation areas, the letter said.

Perth City Council approved the demolition of the 1911 concert hall, which has lain empty for six years, as part of a £4.4 million plan to create a new civic square centred on St John’s Kirk.

The council claims a “significant proportion of the public and local businesses” backed the plaza plans. A spokesman said that after prolonged discussions of different schemes for the building, “we consider that all appropriate processes have been followed”.

Yesterday Neil Baxter, secretary and treasurer of the Royal Incorporation of Scottish Architects, added his voice to the debate. “It is a great shame that a local authority that has allowed one of its own properties to run down and become dilapidated is then able to demolish something that is an asset for the town,” he said.

SAVE Britain’s Heritage has been a flag-bearer for the nation’s built heritage since 1975. In Scotland, it was instrumental in the campaign to save Dumfries House, which was bought with its historic furniture collection for more than £40m in a purchase underwritten by the Prince of Wales.

In the letter to Historic Scotland, it praised the pillared building’s “monumental neo-Classical style” devised by Glasgow architects H E Clifford and Lunan as a “dominant and handsome presence”.

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The leading modern Scottish architect Malcolm Fraser noted the decision came in a week when the 2011 Andrew Doolan prize for Scotland’s best building went to the overhaul of another historic structure, the National Museum of Scotland. The £4m could be better spent on converting the building to a “wonderful covered market”, with a plan proposed earlier this year by Edinburgh conservation architect James Simpson, he said.

Architect Richard Murphy, who has sung in a chorus at the hall, said: “I don’t have a strong feeling about knocking it down. Buildings come and buildings go.” The new Perth Concert Hall had brought an end to the building’s use, he said.

But Mr Murphy questioned how the city could create a working square, warning that Festival Square in Edinburgh, opposite the Usher Hall, was an example of a failed attempt to make an urban plaza.

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