Arbroath councillors have called for the bulldozers to brought in to an old town primary school site – to avoid any chance of a repeat of the saga surrounding Forfar’s former Lochside leisure centre.
The former St Thomas RC primary in Seaton Road is earmarked for around 40 new council houses.
It closed in 2020 when St Thomas youngsters joined Hayshead primary pupils on the new £14 million shared campus at Abbey View.
But the new homes might be a few years away.
Knock down demand
So a senior councillor says he wants to see St Thomas razed as quickly as possible.
Alex King’s comments were a thinly-veiled reference to the controversy around the 47-year-old leisure centre on the edge of Forfar Loch.
Lochside is still standing after a campaign to keep it for community use reached Scotland’s highest civil court.
A decision was finally taken in December to demolish the building.
However, it could still be many months before the site is cleared and returned to common good ground.
Surplus to requirements
St Thomas has been used by the council for storage, but is no longer needed.
And Mr King doesn’t want anything to delay the plans for the site.
“I welcome this report, it’s been a long time since we have been able to build council housing for rent.
“I’d like to see some wind under this project.
“But I’d like to see this building come down just as fast as possible, just in case somebody else, somewhere else has bright ideas of another use for that building,” he said.
Authority leader and fellow Arbroath councillor David Fairweather backed the demolition call.
“Fair comment Councillor King, we’ve been there before,” he added.
Their comments came at the policy committee which agreed the plan for new houses on the 13,200 square metre site.
Housing chief John Morrow said: “The timescale for delivery depends on discussion with the Scottish Government, where some funding might come from the affordable housing programme, as well as our own capital programme.
“It will take us some time to work up to designs and planning permissions.
It would be a two-year lead-in period and 18-month construction project.
“We are looking at starting in the year 2024,” said Mr Morrow.
