Question mark remains on future of Perthshire church

Restoration plans for the old Bankfoot kirk remain up in the air after last week’s rainstorm.

The community has been raising money to take over the ruin and preserve it as an historic landmark.

But the project faces an uncertain future after part of the tower came crashing down in the early hours of Thursday morning.

Perth and Kinross Council and the Church of Scotland called for urgent demolition work after an initial assessment revealed the fire-hit church was in danger of further collapse.

A follow-up meeting between council planners and residents is due to take place in the new year.

The church, which dates back to 1812, was left a burnt out shell after a devastating blaze on Ash Wednesday, February 2004.

A total of 36 firefighters, using seven appliances, tackled the inferno. Efforts to tackle the blaze where hampered when embers got inside one of the first engines on the scene, causing a mechanical breakdown.

Fire chiefs reviewed their set-up following criticism that a second appliance had been scrambled from Coupar Angus, instead of Dunkeld station which is closer.

Six weeks after the fire, then locum minister the Very Rev Dr James Simpson spoke of the community’s reaction.

“It was from different locations and perspectives that the villagers viewed the raging inferno,” he told The Courier at the time.

A proposal to preserve the ruin was announced in 2016, after a £500,000 restoration plan was hit by a series of setbacks.

At the time, the Rev Adrian Lough said it was unlikely that the church would survive another winter.

The Very Rev Dr James Simpson, who was locum at the church at the time of the fire.