Good news, bad news. The good news is that an important historical building in Scotland has apparently been saved from demolition. The bad news is that an important historical building in Scotland has apparently not been saved from demolition. It’s the story of our country’s built heritage really: lots of hope, piles of rubble.

But I wouldn’t want you to get too depressed this Monday morning with another three weeks of the general election still to go, so let’s start with more details about the good news. Chances are you may have seen it reported in The Herald and, if I may say so, The Herald played its part in making it happen. A cinema in Glasgow, the Vogue, was under threat of demolition, campaigners kicked up a stink, The Herald told the story, the council slapped a building preservation order on it, Historic Environment Scotland listed it, and there we are: victory, demolition averted, well done everybody.

Before we get too excited though, let’s go 40 miles south for the bad news. It’s another case you may be aware of: the Station Hotel in Ayr, once one of the grandest station hotels in the country but empty and un-used for years. It was badly damaged by a fire last year (deliberately started of course) and the council started to demolish the place (public safety of course). There were attempts to stop it or delay it, but sadly the bulldozers are roaring and the walls are coming down.

So what are we to make of it all? The system for listing buildings exists for good reason and The Vogue shows it can work well. Historic Environment Scotland looked at the building and saw that it was a fine art-deco design by an important architect of cinema; they also looked at its social and cultural importance in a part of Glasgow, Possilpark and Springburn, that’s lost a lot of its buildings and concluded it should be listed. It means the owner cannot go ahead with his demolition plans and Historic Environment Scotland will have a say in any development. As I say: good news.

But here’s the thing: Ayr Station Hotel, the one that’s currently being pulled down, is also listed and for good reason. It’s a handsome red sandstone building, designed by the great Scottish engineer Andrew Galloway who also did the incredible Glaisnock viaduct in Cumnock, and so it’s listed as Category B. But as we can see from the bulldozers doing their thing, listing it has in the end been no protection. So what’s going on?

The answer is there’s a crater-sized loophole in the legislation. The law that protects listed buildings is the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) (Scotland) Act 1997, but its little brother is the Building (Scotland) Act 2003 which effectively allows councils to demolish listed buildings if they consider them to be a danger to the public. The only test is that the building “appears to the local authority” to be dangerous; in other words, what the council says goes.

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This cannot be acceptable for obvious reasons. Councils are often left with old buildings that cost a lot of money to maintain – this has certainly happened in the case of the station hotel in Ayr (it was costing thousands of pounds a month) and I have some sympathy when council budgets are small and shrinking. Old buildings can also be in the way of other, more lucrative plans, which may create an incentive for councils to declare buildings dangerous and therefore get shot of them.

There’s certainly an argument to be made that this is what’s happened to the station hotel. I spoke to the engineer David Ramsay, former chair of the Ayr Station Hotel Community Action Group, and his take on the situation was that South Ayrshire Council and Network Rail, which owns around 50% of the hotel complex, want a bus station and shopping centre in the space where the hotel stands and have been working, without ever admitting it publicly, to bring about the demolition of the hotel buildings. According to Mr Ramsay, there’s effectively been a secret agenda by some of the parties involved to let the hotel deteriorate to the point where they can say that the “public safety” test can be applied and they can pull it down.

The obvious solution is to close the loophole by applying a more objective and rigorous test to the question of public safety. Undoubtedly, old buildings can get into a dangerous state, and there’s a responsibility to ensure they’re safe for the general public to be around. But can it be right that a council can exercise its emergency powers and demolish buildings under the public safety test without providing evidence to justify its actions?

One organisation that thinks no is SAVE Britain’s Heritage, which has been one of the leading voices in the campaign to protect Ayr Station Hotel. This week, they’ve been highlighting the loophole in the law and have launched a petition with the Scottish Parliament to close it. It calls for two things: first, enhanced policy guidance on the minimum evidence and processes required by local authorities before making decisions on the demolition of listed buildings under the emergency powers; and second, a mandatory policy requirement for councils to engage with conservation-accredited engineers in all cases involving listed buildings.

As far Henrietta Billings, director of SAVE Britain’s Heritage, is concerned, the petition is an opportunity to bring a national issue to the attention of MSPs and open a much-needed debate on the protection of listed buildings across the country. “These buildings are gifts to the nation from the past," she said, "and we should be taking every step necessary to ensure they are protected from unnecessary demolition – as is intended by the legislation.”

Well said, and it's not a lot to ask for; in fact, it’s reasonable. As SAVE says, we should be taking every step to ensure listed buildings are protected from unnecessary demolition, as the original legislation intended.

So why don’t we try to do that? And it would be great if you could sign the petition too if you can. Because the listing of the Vogue cinema in Glasgow may be a little win, I hope it is. But the protection we offer to buildings isn’t nearly as tough as it should be. Check out the state of the station hotel if you don’t believe me. Look around and see it for yourself.