Glasgow School of Art survey delayed over falling debris fear

Concerns about the safety of the surviving shell of Glasgow School of Art’s Mackintosh building, which was gutted by fire last Friday, have delayed a full survey of the damage until next week.

Following complaints from local residents and business owners about slow progress, Glasgow city council’s head of building control, Raymond Barlow, warned there was still a chance parts of the fire-damaged stonework could fall into the street.

But about 40 households in the surrounding Garnethill area who remain displaced following the blaze say they are frustrated by the lack of access to their homes to collect essential items and the poor standard of alternative accommodation they have been offered.

Barlow said: “I fully understand people’s desire to get back into their property and if we could safely do anything to facilitate that then we would.

“However, surveys in recent days have shown us that the west and east elevations remain of significant concern. This means that there is a risk that parts of the building might fall into Scott Street or Dalhousie Street. This could happen without warning.”

He urged the public to stay away from the site, following reports of people breaching the cordon. Police Scotland are investigating reports of a break-in on Thursday at Campus bar on Sauchiehall Street, which was also affected by the fire.

Barlow said he was working with colleagues on a plan to allow a full examination of the remaining structure.

“Working with the Glasgow School of Art and Historic Environment Scotland, we are currently devising a methodology to allow us to examine the building up close,” he said. “However, it will be at least the early part of next week before we are able to do that.”

Jane Sutherland, the chair of the Garnethill community council, said many displaced residents, a mix of private owners and housing association tenants, had been staying on friends’ sofas as they waited for further information.

“People are very upset about the inconsistency that members of the art school board are allowed in to have their photographs taken next to the building, but they can’t even get five minutes in their own homes to collect their hearing aids,” Sutherland said.

While Charing Cross housing association has offered its tenants places at a nearby hotel, others were provided with rooms at a local homeless hostel which they felt was unsuitable.

“It’s great that the building is going to be saved,” said Sutherland, “but people need information about whether they need to be rehoused, and access to their homes at least briefly to pick up essentials.”

She mentioned one student who was due to fly home to the US on Friday but could not collect her passport, and self-employed people with no access to their work tools, as well as others who went out on Friday night dressed in party clothes to celebrate Eid and had nothing else to wear for a week.

The cordon around the site was scaled back on Thursday, although some local people are still unable to return to their homes and premises, raising concerns about the impact on business after the second fire to affect this stretch of Sauchiehall Street since March.

Council advisers and social workers are based in the nearby Glasgow dental hospital to offer advice to those directly affected by the fire.

Glasgow School of Art would not comment on reports that a series of plaster casts of famous statues had been lost in the blaze. It is known that all the school’s archives and many fittings, including 29 Mackintosh library brass-plate lights, from the building, which has been painstakingly reconstructed following the first fire in May 2014, were being stored off site at the time of the last week’s blaze.

Earlier in the week, the fire service escorted school staff into the Reid building opposite the Mackintosh to retrieve work by recent graduates that had been packed up to send to London for a New Designers showcase.