what a waste - and what a wasteland it'll be.

Exactly. Wastage seems to be what our councils do best. Yet another gap site added to the centre of Paisley- despite that we get: "Demolishing the building will improve the environment of the town centre"- quite.
Lets sweep away buildings with enduring materials like sandstone, and replace them with either...nothing...or cheap transient materials with no pretensions to posterity.
The bulldozer will plough us into the brave new future...seriously though: why can't we get people to live in a prime location in a any of our major towns and cities?
Instead we continue to be dazzled by the low-fi Americana dream of subtopian out of town living based around the car...can't help but think by abandoning our European heritage of preserving our built historical centres we have somehow went awry.
But hey...its Pandora's box and all that...

and I drive past this block every day - the building looks like its about to fall down. The roof is partly collapsed, its severely fire damaged and looks to be riddled with damp. I can't speak for the people who live in the block, but I can't imagine their living conditions aren't great. We can't change decisions that have been made in the past, but allowing the opportunity for new housing in the town centre, or promoting the site as part of the Arnotts site must be a good thing. Contrary to popular belief, Paisley has a vast amount of traditional tenements and buildings...and recent schemes (on canal street for example) have been aimed at repairing the historic fabric. This particular block is not a typical example of an 'low-fi, american dream' but just a solution to a particular issue on a prime site that could be used better to help raise Paisley's offer. The question is whether the council can attract an appropriate developer to make best use of the site and build something that is quality and that people can actually be proud of.