Green light for pub demolition
Council approves block of flats plan on the site of former Anniesland venue
PLANS to demolish a former Anniesland pub and build a block of flats have been approved by the city council. The old Signal Box on Fulton Street will be knocked down to make way for six flats. Applicant Kulbinder Singh also plans to provide eight parking spaces and a bike store.
A planning report stated: “We feel an opportunity exists to create a landmark building on this site, of genuine merit in contemporary architectural terms, which it would be a great pity to pass up through adopting a more timid and traditional approach.”
Planning consent was previously granted in 2008 for a threestorey block containing seven flats but work never got under way.
“The pub name commemorates the fact that a railway signal box once stood on this site along with a railway branch line,” this application stated.
“Although the pub was re-named as ‘The Second Step’ in the 1990s, its original incarnation was as a ‘themed railway bar’ called ‘The Signal Box’ when it was built in 1971 by the
Breweries.
“Although the 1970s design was certainly unusual, bold, and arguably striking for its time, the proportions were inconsistent/ compromised and the execution poor.
“In light of which it would perhaps be fair today to say (and widely accepted), that the building is of little or no architectural merit.”
Tennent
Caledonian
There will be five two-bedroom and a one-bedroom flat.
Detail Architecture, which has drawn up the plans, added: “Our current proposal on behalf of our client, who has recently purchased the site, is to demolish the pub and replaced it with six new flats within one three-storey block to the south of the site, leaving the north half of the site clear for use as parking for cars and bicycles and private recreational green space for the use of the residents.
“This is also an opportunity for an elegant and original solution that achieves something of more architectural value than the rather generic and standardised semidetached/terraced suburban housetypes that currently surround the site.”