CPO floated to end 30-year Egyptian Halls stand-off
January 28 2025
Glasgow City Council is taking the gloves off in an attempt to break a heritage stand-off which has overshadowed Union Street for three decades.
The Egyptian Halls, long entombed behind scaffolding, were the subject of a recent approach to the council by The List and Ediston to turn it into a food court.
Now, the council's contracts and property committee will meet on 6 February to decide whether to launch an investigation into pursuing a CPO, by determining whether there are any parties with the capability to renew the building as well as giving weight to active proposals from the current owners - if any.
Councillor Ruairi Kelly commented: “While there remains no indication of a viable plan coming forward from the building’s owners, the concern is the Halls continue to deteriorate. “What councillors are being asked is whether the time is right for the City Council to look at how we use CPO powers to acquire the Halls. CPOs can be lengthy and complex legal processes but this would be the first major step towards the repair and reuse of this beautiful building, bringing part of Glasgow’s heritage back into city life, with so many positive impacts for our city centre.”
In a statement, Derek Souter, lead owner of the ground and upper floors under two separate companies, told Urban Realm: "The council are in fact for accuracy considering the feasibility for a new CPO and will assess this first...
"No formal offer was turned down from the List but a highly conditional and outline offer was received dependent on securing planning permission and they also did not have access the funding required so it faded away. But they do appear to have influential stakeholders pitching for them. Now if they have access to the required funds tell them to get in touch.
"After today and wasting so many years and time attempting to collaborate with GCC and Historic Environment Scotland USP and USI will look to pursue purely commercial options as advised was the only way forward by GCC."
Niall Murphy, director of Glasgow City Heritage Trust, told Urban Realm: "I think it's the right thing to do because it will bring the impasse to a head. The current situation is untenable, it's causing too much blight."
Concerns have risen in recent years at the deteriorating condition of the building, which has received no applications for planning permission for reuse since 2012. Current moves constitute the first steps towards a lengthy legal process that would ultimately see ownership pass to the party best placed to deliver a viable plan to retain, repair and re-use Alexander Thomson's masterpiece.
Explaining the historical and architectural significance of the building Murphy added: "The main facade on Union Street is of critical historical importance because it encompasses Thomson's mature style. It's his commercial masterpiece, it's the mysterious power of the horizontal which was influenced by John Martin's biblical apocalyptic paintings."
Souter told Urban Realm that while he will fight any CPO he is willing to meet with representatives of Ediston and The List 'anyplace and at anytime' to discuss a market value sale, adding a suitable agreement could be be in place within a matter of months.
11 Comments
Glasgow City “Clowncil” don’t exactly have a good track record of looking after our historic buildings.
The glacial pace of this and the pathetic lack of action is unbelievable.
Why would they even need to go into the slow expensive complexity of a compulsory purchase order when they could have at any time issued a statutory repairs notice with immediate effect?
In fact Glasgow City Council is legally obligated to take care of its listed buildings stock and it does not do so.
Shamefully poor mismanagement.
GCC does not own this building. This is explained in the second paragraph. The owner has been obstinate for decades, like most typical profit driven developers.
#4 "Perhaps they forgot about the building given the majority of the council employees still ‘work’ from home - which is an utter disgrace in itself."
Wow. An impressive segue onto a completely unrelated point. Well done. Are you one of those angry multiple building owners who is now having to tighten their belt as people can be more productive working from home part of the week?
This hits the nail on the head.
Even Glasgow city Council would not be daft enough to issue a compulsory purchase order on itself….
This is the very important point here that has yet again been missed. The council does not need to own the building to be responsible for it. They have a legal obligation to take care of their listed building stock in the city and they are not doing so. They have the power to do it without compulsory purchase but they choose not to use that power for some reason.
If you do real work in these sectors you might have noticed that council work rates have gone down, waiting times have gone up, contact-ability is lower than ever and intransigence has become even more commonplace in many departments.
This is not just my opinion but my direct experience and it prevents projects progressing during a housing crisis and helps exacerbate situations like the above during a deepening listed buildings crisis.
Nope, unfortunately I am not a building owner - never mind multiple.
I assume you are one of the WFH'ers that still ludicrously claim to be more productive in a desperate attempt to cling on to your life of leisure. It will soon be time to report back to your desk son - and not before time!
