Fears fire fund is ‘not good enough’

SAUCHIEHALL Street business owners are calling for Scotland’s First Minister to lead a national recovery plan.

Some traders fear they could go bust three months on from the Glasgow School of Art fire.

A £20,000 payment from the Scottish Government has been described as ‘inadequate’ to cover losses incurred by the blaze.

GLASGOW School of Art (GSA) management will be asked to give evidence to MSPs after a Holyrood committee heard of systemic management failures on fire risk.

The art school’s historic Mackintosh Building suffered a devastating fire in June as reconstruction following an earlier blaze in 2014 neared completion.

A panel with links to its famed designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh or to the art school gave evidence to Holyrood’s Culture Committee. They agreed the building should be rebuilt and an expert panel should be set up to oversee this, but were split on whether lessons had been learned from the 2014 fire and what the refurbished building should be used for.

Glasgow Kelvin MSP Sandra White said the GSA board, whose chairman vowed last week to rebuild the iconic building, appeared “not fit for purpose”.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh scholar Roger Billcliffe said the building was a “fire trap waiting to happen” due to construction including air vents which acted as chimneys and warned a further blaze would occur if the building is rebuilt.

He argued students should not return to the building and said “nobody knows” whether lessons were learned from the earlier fire as a fire service report was redacted and claimed the art school had “not said a word”.