A secret report to go before councillors as they decide the future of Perth City Hall contains no recommendations, The Courier can reveal.
After four months of talks between council officials and Perth Market Place Ltd to thrash out a lease agreement, no clear way forward is outlined in the report.
The matter was deferred in October to allow the preferred bidders, who wish to see the hall converted into a food hall, an opportunity to convince the council that they could financially deliver the project.
However, it is understood there is no guidance to councillors on how they should now proceed.
“It could be they are within touching distance (of an agreement) or that it is a non-starter,” said one person who has seen the report.
“Either way there should be a professional assessment.”
The full meeting at the Dewars Centre will be held in private on the grounds that the terms of a contract negotiation will be discussed.
As well as the public and press being excluded from the crunch meeting, the report has only had a narrow circulation.
Vivian Linacre, a director of Perth Market Place Ltd, confirmed that he and his company’s professional advisers had been unable to obtain sight of the report.
It had been hoped by many that Wednesday’s meeting would provide a clear and significant step in securing the future of the building.
This seems far less likely given the lack of a suggested course of action in the report on the food market hall venture.
In October councillors made it clear that if the plan couldn’t be demonstrated to stack up financially, the future of the hall could again be thrown into jeopardy.
Councillors have in the past expressed their wish to see the hall razed to make way for a civic square.
This proved unpopular with many local people, the venue being close to their hearts.
The watchdog Historic Scotland now replaced by Historic Environment Scotland has proved to be a major obstacle to the demolition option.
It has consistently pushed for all viable options to reusing the building to be thoroughly examined a stance that led to councillors deciding to adopt the market hall plan as the preferred bidder as opposed to a boutique hotel plan.
In a saga stretching back for more than a decade it now appears that the council officials are reluctant to point the councillors towards either backing the food hall plan or rejecting it.
Meanwhile, Perth and Kinross Council declined to comment on the report or its contents.