The man behind a campaign to save Kelvin House has commended councillors for giving the 1930s building a stay of execution.
Duncan MacIntosh, who launched a petition to save the beleaguered building last month, welcomed a councillors’ decision to reject proposals to tear down the C-listed building.
Renfrewshire Council applied for planning permission to demolish the property in November – arguing that it would not be “economically viable” to keep it.
The local authority wanted to knock it down, along with the former depot, to pave the way for a potential development on the site and facilitate the restoration of the adjoining B-listed Forbes Place.
Developers Nixon Blue, it said, had ambitions to create riverside apartments with commercial units on the ground floor.
But at Tuesday’s meeting of the Renfrewshire Council planning board, members threw out the application, branding the proposals as “simply not good enough”.
Mr MacIntosh, a retired conservation officer, secured more than 700 signatures for his petition aimed at saving the building designed by the renowned architect James Steel Maitland.
He told the Paisley Daily Express: “I really welcome the decision by the planning board. None of the councillors spoke in favour of demolition, which is reassuring.
“Officers were left in no doubt that their employers want at least its facade retained, and incorporated into development proposals for the site.”
Mr MacIntosh has described the art deco Kelvin House as being of “regional importance” – arguing that, as an absolute minimum, the facade should be preserved as part of Paisley’s rich and unique built heritage.
He added: “We have won the battle but not the war.
“We hope the developer can see that saving the facade is a reasonable goal. It is not beyond the developer to do this. It it done very frequently and there are many examples of this in Glasgow. It is also not difficult to do at all.”
Both Kelvin House and Forbes Place have stood empty and deteriorating since 2009 when the council’s social workers flitted.
The council agreed in March 2020 to sell the buildings, and an adjoining site in Marshall’s Lane, to the developers of the neighbouring six-storey Millhouse block, Nixon Blue.
It was understood then that this would entail a partial demolition of Kelvin House.
However, many were surprised when the application changed from partial demolition to full demolition and also that the application was made by the council itself and not the developer.
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