Last throw of dice on hotel

In the Ayrshire Post of March 4, Cllr McGinley told us that everyone the Council had tried to interest in buying the Station Hotel has walked away. Defending the Council, Cllr McGinley suggests that “any blame should be turned in other directions to those responsible for this mess”.

But who could possibly hold those responsible to account, if not the council?

And who would want to buy a decaying historic building at a price which does not actually reflect the now high cost of repair?

The council’s role as a would-be enabler would appear pointless if it does not actually use its powers to try to bring the owner to realise that he has real (and not merely rhetorical) financial responsibilities to an historic building which also straddles a station and stands over a railway line.

I have corresponded with the council’s chief executive to ask if they would serve a Repairs notice (as opposed to a Dangerous Buildings notice) on the owner.

And, in case they felt that Repairs notices were flawed, I asked if they would use the glaring case of the Station Hotel to ask the Scottish Government for a better system.

It appears from the response I received that the council is not likely to do either. Dangerous Buildings notices, I should point out, are intended simply to make buildings safe, usually by partial or total demolition; issuing them may actually serve the interest of some uncaring owners who want to realise site value.

The Council is far more keen on Dangerous Buildings notices than on Repairs notices for the Station Hotel.

Where does this leave Ayr? At one end of High Street, the council has helped to enable a clearance site to regenerate the town, but has come up with a design so bland that there is a huge upsurge of criticism which will only get worse if they build the thing.

At the other end of town, we started out with a very striking and impressive structure, Ayr’s most conspicuous historic building, the Station Hotel, and we have seen it decay over years, without the Council serving a single Repairs notice.

If you think it a great thing that Ayr’s “Renaissance” consists of moving the council offices from a bland building at one end of High Street to a bland building at the other, and if you think the possibility of another big cleared site at the other end of town is an amazing idea, then clearly you do not find the unravelling of the future of Ayr Town Centre as desperate and as urgent as I do.

We are getting close to the last throw of the dice; without real vision, common sense and action from the council, I fear that Ayr is likely to further degrade with frightening speed. Michael Davis, Ochiltree