Appeal over hotel plan for listed Glasgow building is rejected

Developers behind rejected plans to knock down a listed Glasgow building and create a 19-storey hotel on the site have failed to overturn the decision.

Regent Property wanted to demolish the B-listed former printworks on Maxwell Street and use the site for a new Radisson hotel with a rooftop bar.

Glasgow City Council refused the application in November last year due to the size of the proposed development and its impact on the surrounding conservation area.

Objectors had spoken out against the loss of the old McCorquodale's Printers building.

A reporter, appointed by Scottish government ministers, has now dismissed the appeal.

Regent Property had urged the Scottish government to step in and approve the scheme, with the appeal claiming no alternative viable project, of a different scale or design, exists for the site.

It wrote: "The alternative is continued dereliction: a site left to inevitable decay, contributing nothing to the city centre, offering no public benefit, and actively diminishing the character of this part of the conservation area."

Susannah Moore, the reporter, decided the principle of a hotel is "generally acceptable" and wrote that there is "justification for the demolition of the listed and unlisted buildings on site".

However, she found the proposed design, by reason of the building's massing, scale and height, would fail to respond sensitively to the streetscape around it.

She added this would result in harm to the character and appearance of the central conservation area and the setting of nearby listed buildings.

The reporter refused listed building and conservation area consent as there are "no acceptable redevelopment proposals in place and no indication that an acceptable redevelopment proposal is likely to be found in the short or even medium term".

She said the loss of the buildings, which would create a gap site, would "result in unacceptable harm to the character and appearance of the central conservation area".

Moore also said repairs to the building would not be economically viable.

The project would have involved the demolition of both an unlisted building at 40 Fox Street and a B-listed property at 90 Maxwell Street, which are near Glasgow's St Enoch centre.

Regent wanted to provide 159 hotel rooms and 77 serviced apartments, with Radisson Hotels lined up as the operator, as well as a rooftop bar and restaurant.

Reporting by local democracy reporter Drew Sandelands.