BY ABNDREW WELSH
ONE of Scotland’s most successful musicians has called for the demolition of Perth City Hall after he branded it an “ugly mausoleum”.
Average White Band frontman Alan Gorrie believes the case for bulldozing Perth City Hall is stronger than ever after the sudden closure of the 148-year-old department store McEwens of Perth.
The firm fell into administration on March 24 with the loss of 110 jobs in the city, and in Ballater and Oban. McEwens closed loss-making stores in Inverness and Aberdeen early last year.
Perth-born Gorrie, 69, said the store’s demise had made the need to clarify the future of its close neighbour, the city hall, more urgent. It has been at the centre of a long-running dispute over its future.
He said: “I can see no capacity or place for a really rather ugly mausoleum like that nowadays.”
The bassist said he believed that potential efforts to attract a replacement retailer could be hampered by the ongoing uncertainty over the B-listed hall’s future, and he hit out at Scottish Government watchdogs for blocking its destruction.
Historic Environment Scotland has repeatedly objected to Perth and Kinross Council’s attempts to raze the disused Edwardian structure, which was mothballed in 2005 following the completion of Perth Concert Hall. The new hall opened in 1911 and hosted Gaelic Mods, rock concerts and conferences.
Famously, it was the scene of Margaret Thatcher’s first speech as Prime Minister in 1979 to the Scottish Conservatives.
“I’m all in favour of pulling the city hall down and creating a nice plaza,” Gorrie, who grew up in Perth’s Craigie district, said.
“It might attract a new store to take the place of McEwens. The shadow of that lumbering, ugly building is not going to attract anything.”
“It prevents light from one side of the city hall getting to the other.
“I think cafes and things on the other side would open up like any proper European plaza town if they got rid of it because it’s never going to be used again.”
Gorrie, who moved to Connecticut a year after the Average White Band scored a US number one with Pick Up The Pieces in 1975, described the closure of McEwens as “a shocking development”.
“My wife always loves to spend time in McEwens when we visit Perth,” he added.
“It was one of her go-to places, as it was with my mum and all my antecedents. It’s just terrible for a town when such a big department store as that goes out of business.
“It’s almost epidemic now throughout Britain that the whole online shopping business has truly killed off retail and the thing is it’s the whole town that suffers.
“A lot of people probably didn’t shop at McEwens and don’t see it as anything particularly severe but it means that there’s a large corner of town that will now have a big empty derelict shop.
“It isn’t good for a relatively recently pedestrianised street and the whole outlook of a town can change on something like that. So I’m very unhappy to see it close.”
Formed in Dundee in 1972, the Average White Band have influenced generations of musicians.
A spokeswoman for Historic Environment Scotland said the agency had adopted a neutral position on the landmark’s troubles.
She said: “As a statutory consultee, wWe would be consulted on any future listed building consent for the building, and our response would be in line with relevant policies and guidance concerning listed buildings.”
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