ONE of the jewels of Glasgow's Georgian heritage was being reduced to rubble yesterday after the council planning department declared it unsafe.
The loss of the A-listed Virginia Galleries prompted the Scottish Civic Trust to accuse Glasgow City Council of allowing ''an outrage'' to happen on its doorstep.
The building, once the tobacco trading house that helped make the city's fortune, was condemned on Tuesday morning after cracks appeared at the top of its facade. Until then, the front of the four-storey arcade had been regarded as its most stable part - the interior has long been blighted by dry rot and water damage.
Dozens of residents in nearby Virginia Court were evacuated from their homes and put up in a hotel, where they may have to stay for two weeks.
In the 1990s, the building at 31 to 35 Virginia Street in the Merchant City found a new life as a bohemian shopping arcade for about 40 traders. However, it was abandoned in 1998 after sinking 10 inches in a weekend as excavation work was going on at the adjacent Marks & Spencer store in Argyle Street.
Although vacant since, Credential Holdings, its owner, said last year it was ready to undertake (pounds) 240,000 of repair work.
Terry Leventhal, director of the Scottish Civic Trust, said: ''The demolition of such a listed building, in a conservation area, is an outrage.''
Liz Davidson, director of the Merchant City Townscape Heritage Initiative, said: ''The loss of this is almost inconceivable.''
Derek Porter, deputy chief executive of Credential Holdings, said: ''It is regrettable, but public safety has to be paramount.''
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article