South Ayrshire's new council leader has pledged to demolish Ayr's Station Hotel — if he can't get the building's owner round the negotiating table.
In his latest post-election declaration, Martin Dowey says he is prepared to deal with the saga "once and for all".
And he has warned the crumbling hotel's owner he has six months to finally engage — before the new look council takes matters into its own hands.
Dowey, voted in to lead a Conservative minority last week, told Ayrshire Live: "The town cannot live with the problem any longer.
"My ideal scenario would be to see the building revamped but the reality is that the hotel is holding back any investment Network Rail may want to make in the railway station at present.
"Ayr is the fourth busiest railway station in Scotland — but you wouldn't know it to look at.
"It should be an asset to this town and yet people flood off the platforms to see that as their welcome to Ayr.
"So we need to deal with this once and for all and we will do so."
Council chiefs have been shelling out £60,000 per month on protective scaffolding since they assumed control under a Dangerous Building Notice in 2018.
But they have been unable to track down the hotel's Malaysian owner, Eng Huat Ung, for talks to break the deadlock ever since.
Speaking to the Ayrshire Post earlier this month, Mr Ung's legal team said he was willing to find a "final solution".
Both sides have so far been unable to enter dialogue on building costs to the council which have topped £1 million since 2018.
New council leader Dowey added: "We've put a very expensive tarpaulin over the building and just left it there. Now we need proper action.
"We'll look over the next six months to see if we can get the owner on side and into some kind of meaningful discussion, which hasn't happened to this point.
"If not, I'm afraid we will need to look at demolishing if we can't get anyone else to take over.
"There are a lot of exciting plans out there from certain people I've spoken to - and perhaps certain funding streams would be available for those projects.
"But we've long since reached the point where we need clear and decisive action.
"So if we cannot get the owner round the table, we will look to compulsory purchase the building and demolish it.
"I would rather it was done up and some company jumped in to do that, the last thing I want to do is knock it down, but we also have to be realistic about where we now are."
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