Demolition plan for old YMCA

Former homeless accommodation in St Ninians could be demolished.

Stirling Council housing officials have been looking at a number of options for the former YMCA building at 24 Glasgow Road, but now say knocking it down could be the best option.

Service manager John MacMillan told the council’s environment and housing committee recently that a number of ideas had been explored for the refurbishment of the building including providing housing for a specific group of homeless people and creating mainstream homeless accommodation, however these had been deemed unsustainable.

He added:“It was a YMCA in 1997. It was changed to five levels of individual flats and the property has a strange layout. To be honest it’s terrible and consideration has been given to costs in terms of layout, insulation etc.

“What we are bringing forward is a proposal for demolition but we will be going into that in some detail and also about what will be provided on the site. There will be the same number of units for far better accommodation on that site.

“There is an economic viewpoint but also a quality of home issue. At the moment it is walk-up, five-storey accommodation in family-sized units with no elevators. Whether anyone would see that as suitable accommodation is doubtful, but we will be bringing a paper forward to propose these arguments to the council.”