The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Court clears way for bulldozers
FORFAR: Leisure centre campaigners may appeal ruling
The battle to save a former Angus leisure centre is set to continue despite a Court of Session ruling clearing the way for the wrecking ball.
In a 30-page judicial review judgment following an Edinburgh hearing at the country’s highest civil court last summer, Lady
Carmichael upheld Angus Council’s handling of the decision to bulldoze the 1970s Lochside centre in Forfar.
The council’s February 2019 vote to raze the Forfar Loch facility at a cost of around £350,000 had been branded unlawful by town housebuilder Mark Guild and hotelier Donald Stewart, who mounted the legal challenge.
Angus Council chief executive Margo
Williamson said the ruling confirmed the council had acted “appropriately and with integrity”.
Mr Guild may appeal the outcome and has called on the council to stage a formal consultation on the building’s future. “I don’t think I would be true to myself or the people of Forfar if we let this be the end of it,” he said.
Another battle of Lochside is looming after a decision at Scotland’s highest civil court cleared the way for the demolition of Forfar’s former leisure centre.
In a 30-page legal judgment following a judicial review challenge launched by two town businessmen at the Court of Session in Edinburgh last summer, Lady Carmichael upheld Angus Council’s handling of the decision to bulldoze the 45-year-old building.
Lochside leisure centre closed in February 2017 when the new Forfar community campus was opened.
Housebuilder Mark Guild and town hotelier Donald Stewart mounted the legal fight after branding the demolition decision taken by councillors in early 2019 as unlawful.
Angus Council chief executive Margo Williamson said Lady Carmichael’s ruling confirmed the council acted “appropriately and with integrity”.
Mr Guild is now considering an appeal against the outcome having previously challenged the council’s view that the centre is sinking, producing engineering reports suggesting it has 30 years of life left in it.
Mr Stewart, owner of Forfar’s Royal Hotel, had a £30,000 offer for the building rejected after he hoped to convert it into a café and cinema.
The council chief executive has said the authority will now move to the next stage of the demolition plan.
“We have only had a short time to review her judgment in full but it is clear that we have been successful and that Lady Carmichael has found that the council acted appropriately and with integrity,” Mrs Williamson said.
“Consequently the decision taken by Council to demolish Lochside Leisure Centre remains.”
Mr Guild has vowed to fight on, and has an ally in Forfar administration councillor Braden Davy who said it would be a “disgrace” if the six-figure demolition goes ahead.
The businessman said: “This decision does not mean the demolition of Lochside leisure centre is the right thing to do, particularly where the people of Forfar would wish to be consulted.
“I would call upon the council, even at this late stage, to take a different course by listening to the public and instigating a formal consultation on the future of Lochside.”
Conservative councillor Mr Davy said: “This does not change my views. The people of Forfar do not want this demolished, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money, just to create the most expensive piece of grass in Angus.
“It would be a disgrace for this to be demolished without trying.”
Lady Carmichael’s judgment said demolition of the centre would continue to see the common good land used for recreational purposes.
The judge said the author of the council engineering report had been “entitled to characterise the available information as indicating that persistent problems were foreseeable, and as continuing in the future to a point that the building was no longer serviceable”.