Residents and business owners displaced by the Glasgow School of Art fire vowed to continue the fight to access their properties as they staged a protest at the cordon surrounding the historic landmark.

Dozens of protesters brandishing placards spent around an hour yesterday pleading with workmen for just 10 minutes of access to their homes and commercial premises.

The peaceful event took place almost six weeks after the devastating fire on June 15. Since the blaze, which started in the iconic Mackintosh Building, more than 60 residents have been locked out of their homes while several businesses have been put out of operation.

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(Picture credit: Jamie Simpson for Herald & Times)

Adrian Nairn, chairman of the Garnethill Displaced Residents Group, attempted to break the barrier but was stopped by a Police Scotland officer who threatened to arrest him.

He said: “All we are trying to do is exercise our legal right to enter our homes for 10 minutes.

“Ten minutes over the last five coming up to six weeks now that we can’t get any of our stuff."

He added: “We will be fighting every single day to get into our houses. I can’t promise anything but there will be other attempts.”

Residents and business owners have also said there is doubt over whether the action taken by Glasgow City Council to prevent access is in fact legal.

David Hutchison, who owns Biggars Music, which has been on Sauchiehall Street for more than 100 years, said: “As far as we understand there is a section 43 notice on the building.

“That says that the building is dangerous and it also says that it can effect the buildings around it and make them dangerous.

“The issue that we understand is that the residents  and the businesses have never been served with such notice.

“We are being told that a notice exists but we have never been served with one. It doesn’t appear on the Glasgow City Council website and it is not attached to the fencing. As far as we  can see it doesn’t exist.” 

He added: “Our understanding of the law, which may be right or wrong, is that there is no crime in re-entering our own property.

“The crime happens if there is a court order to then have us removed and we refuse to go.

"Up until that point we are not aware of any crime being committed, therefore we cannot understand on what basis the police or the council are refusing to allow us access.”

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(Picture credit: Jamie Simpson for Herald & Times)

Glasgow City Council previously said residents should not breach the cordon over concerns for safety.

Annemarie O’Donnell, chief executive of Glasgow City Council, issued a strongly worded warning to anyone thinking of breaching the cordon.

She said: “You should not breach the cordon at any time until Glasgow City Council’s building control officers have declared that the GSoA and ABC buildings are no longer dangerous.

"This is because the building may be subject to a sudden, unannounced, collapse.”

She added: “That collapse could happen without warning. Anyone in any adjacent buildings in the path of falling masonry would be at risk of death.”

But Chris Biggam, 36, who lives on Sauchiehall Street, said: “I think it is unacceptable that we cannot get access more than five weeks in because people need essentials like car keys, passports and bank cards.

“The council have done nothing to allow people in for 10 minutes with supervised access.”

He added: “I just don’t think its acceptable that a building should take 12 weeks to be brought down and secondly the council thinks it is okay to let people’s lives be on hold for that amount of time.

“The council keeps talking about its priority is to protect lives but what about livelihoods?

“There seems to be no human dimension to the risk assessment that they are taking.”

Iram Shafiq, 21, has not been able to get into the property she shares with her mother and three siblings for the past five weeks.

She said: “I have a sister with autism and epilepsy, and a brother with autism and they don’t understand what’s happened.

“We have lived there for over 12 years. We just want to get into our home for 10 to 20 minutes just to get the essential stuff we need, put it in a bag and get out as soon as possible.

“It’s frustrating, it really is.”

Bagel Mania owner Raj Mann, who has been on Sauchiehall Street for 21 years, said: “I have had an opinion for a senior building control officer, who works for a different local authority, and he said he would have dealt with this in a different manner.”

She added: “We have given Glasgow quite a lot and we have tried to provide a happy service – and this is what you get. I don’t know how we can survive this, that’s been five weeks and I have lost a lot of staff. “

Glasgow MSP Pauline McNeill offered her support to residents by marching alongside them.

She said: “I have written to the council because I believe under supervision residents could get into their properties for a short time.

“People need to be aware just how desperate the situation is here for residents and for businesses. There doesn’t seem to be an acknowledgement about the scale of the disaster.”

She added: “It has deeply upset me that our council do not seem to be giving the level of resource and attention to this that it requires.

“Glasgow has never really experienced anything like this and it has exacerbated by two fires and the regeneration work.”