Taking action to save Station Hotel for Ayr

I gather one Malaysian owner has sold the Station Hotel to another one.

We are left to wonder if it a real new owner and, even if it is, will an iconic part of our town be cared for as it ought to be.

Will it just be neglected? We could be very lucky but it is a risk.

At the moment a local group have formed the Ayr Station Hotel Community Action Group.

We had a large public meeting, particularly considering the short notice.

We wrote to the Scottish Government, who told us to deal directly with South Ayrshire Council so we sent a copy of their reply to every councillor, all 28. The council leader and his deputy met six of the committee last Tuesday.

We are looking at ideas and going with costings and options.

For instance, if it was split could the main part form a bijou hotel with the extra part made into flats for a cooperative housing complex.

We were told housing was not practical.

However, we have professional people on our committee who have done research and feel that there are prospects.

The town may have to compulsorily purchase and asset transfer to a community partnership or to a hotel company if it were to be a bijou hotel.

Any practical way of properly using the buildings and allowing Ayr people to see it and use it would suit us, so long as the building is properly conserved.

If the hotel is sold to speculators it may be too far down the line next time.

If the engineer’s report is open to the hotel being conserved and if the new owner is not going to do the right thing by the town and the hotel we should act ourselves to ensure that the hotel stays and develops for the town.

We will be having publicity, meetings and political pressure at all levels if we have to.

It will not necessarily take any more government money to make the hotel right than to build a new steel and glass Ayr station.

Of course, you could spend a lot more if it was restored it to the level of Glasgow City Chambers, the ex- Stock Exchange, which was how it was built. Esther Clark

Interim chair

Ayr Station Hotel Community Ban bus station smoking

Ayr Bus station bay areas are covered by a roof, the only opened area blocked by parked buses, causing a tunnel effect.

This is acceptable under the antismoking bye- laws inan area that has a higher usage by children, seniors and people with disabilities.

How they can ban smoking at tables outside cafes where the skies are open is unbelievable and stupid.

I believe the issue of smoking at a bus stance, where people are trapped waiting to board a bus, is a far bigger issue, an issue that at Kilmarnock and Buchanan Street bus stations is banned.

Oh, wait a minute. South Ayrshire Council by laws are different.

Ed Sneider, Prestwick Bin plans rubbished

Oh where, please tell me, will all these bins go?

Sounds like the beginning of a song but, believe me, not one I relish singing.

The present bins narrow the path to the rear of my house, making it even narrower, and any delivery men with fridges, washing machines, etc, would have to move these bins into the front garden to get past, as would couriers with large items of furniture.

Due to the inside layout of my house, a sideboard being moved from a front room to a back room had to be carried round the side of the house to the back entrance.

Fat chance now, with all these bins on the proposed menu.

Usually couriers or deliverymen are on time schedules and may not be happy to be asked or expected to remove five bins to deliver the goods. Who would blame them?

The tenant, whether due to age or physical inability, may be unable to move those bins.

Has any consideration been given to that aspect of this plan? I doubt it.

Perhaps the council might be better to focus their minds and our money on where all this waste originates, working with the perpetrators who cause it reaching us in the first place. Would that not be a wiser course to follow ? Helen Liddell