Vivian Linacre
Property developer whose charm helped controversial projects see the light
Vivian Linacre, commercial property developer. Born 5: August 1928 in Toxteth, Liverpool. Died: 17 September 2021, aged 93
Vivian Linacre was an optimist’s optimist, an enthusiast’s enthusiast whose glass was always half-full-to-brimming-over with cheerfulness and passion for a cause.
A true Brit by his own definition, being born in Liverpool from Welsh, Irish and Italian stock then settling in Scotland for most of his life, Vivian Lin acrewas a ken speckled commercial property developer who conjured up shopping centres, offices and a gentleman’s club where others only saw resistanceto change. he then won his campaign for the retention of British Imperial measures and having settled in Perth realised his long and ultimately successful appeals to prevent the demolition of Perth’ s City Hall.
Born Vivian Thornton Linacre in Liverpool in 1928, third son of Bert Linacre and Connie, he attended Knotty Ash primary school alongside Ken Dodd, and then Prescot Grammar School. His father’s work took the family to Birmingham and then edinburgh where vivian embraced George Heriot’s with typical enthusiasm; he later sent three of his sons there. The University of Edinburgh was next, and there the poet Edwin morgan befriended him, sending passionate letters and poems. After graduating Lin acre went to London in the mid 1950st ow or kin property development for notable firms such as Healey & Baker.
Returning to Edinburgh in 1961 to join Murrayfield Real Estate Company rather than go to australia with jones lang, he then joined city wall properties in 1968, reaching board level in 1971. Following its takeover by the rank organisation he left to become property manager for Trust house for te before establishinghis own businesses back in Edinburgh in 1978.
Specialising in Scottish retail developments, Vivian Linacre’s early projects such as the Kirkgate at the foot of Edinburgh’s Leith Walk, Eastgate in Inverness and Debenhams department store in Princes Street were once significant and inventive adaptations to the townscape but today appear, as he himself predicted, modest or even small compared to contemporary shopping malls.
While with city wall there development of Edinburgh’s New Club on Princes Street was a controversial project in that it meant the loss of the beautiful Victorian façade by David Bryce, in favour of a concrete construction that gave expansive views of Edinburgh Castle and allowed retail units below. Stub born objections from some members were overcome by Linacre giving a tour of archaic staff facilities that to most were unseen, and resistance melted. He later joked that the development contract’s arbitration clause could never have been applied, as any judge who might preside would certainly have been a Club member.
Less successful was Linacre’s development of Wester Hailes’ shopping centre in the new council estate which met much political opposition – yet compared to past peripheral housing schemes it recognised the need for amenities and local shops that had previously been absent. It finally went ahead but was later overshadowed by competing development sat the Gyle and Livingston new town.
In 1983, concerned about the poor reputation of property developers and estate agents, Linacre decided to raise funds for children at Christmas – The Scottish property industry festivalof chris tm as(sp if ox) was born. Holding an annual carol service followed by an often raucous industry lunch, it has since raised £5 million for children’s causes.
A natural free marketeer, in 1984 Lin acre stood unsuccessfullya story candidate for edinburgh’ s Hay market ward in the district council elections, but by 1995 his sentiments against the newly rebranded Europeanunion led him to become the first Scottish candidate of the embryonic UKIP at the Perth & Kinross by-election. Linacre approached Enoch Powell for endorsement, which was gladly given, and his election agent was a young Nigel Farage.
The SNP’S Rose anna Cunninghamtook these at from the Tories while lin acre came sixth with 504 votes, behind screaming LordSutch of the Monster Raving Loony Party – but he had planted the party’s flag in Scotland.
Party politics could have continued but also that year he re-established the dormant British Weights and Measures Association and devoted his energies to opposing forced metrication. Using his charm and bounding enthusiasm he gathered an impressive list of legendary British figures as patrons who could ensure appeals to keep using furloughs in horse racing, yards on golf courses and kilometres off British road signs won popular support. Peter Alliss, Ian Botham, Jools Holland and JK Rowland and many others rallied to the Imperial measures cause. Although the Metric Martyrs ultimately lost in the courts, decades later, on the day of his death, he learned from his wife Margaretha that Imperial measures were to be made legal again and he smiled in acknowledgement.
Linacre recorded many of his experiences in his books: How to save our Town Centres; Ground Breaking – a history of commercial property; The Marshallplaceconspiracy;and abouttheitaliansideofhisfamily, The Several Lives of Alberto Bioletti, who fought alongside Napoleonoverfourcontinents.
Relyingonaheadymixofboyish good looks and a dapper dress sense to go with his infectious enthusiasm, eloquent argumentsandpassionateperseverance,vivianlinacrecould have sold sand to Arabs and coals to Newcastle – but only in imperial measures.
Linacremarried,joan,whom he met at the first London firm he worked for. They had four sons but divorced, and in 1996 he married Margaretha. She survives him, along with his sons David, Nigel, Timothy and Adrian.