October 4 2024

A B-listed villa in Paisley, dating from 1874 to designs by John Hutchison, has been scheduled for demolition following a recent fire.

Latterly in use as a 15-bed retirement home, Spiersfield House at High Calside was thought to have retained some original furnishings but structural damage has prompted its new owner to clear the site.

Demolition extends to the original house and extensions to the rear and south with sandstone and slates set aside for potential re-use in the future.

This work includes the removal of all foundations and levelling the site, secured by heras fencing.

A two-storey brick extension to the north, with planning consent for a house of multiple occupancy, will be retained with the link structure removed and a new gable wall built.  

7 Comments

#1 Posted by Gideon on 4 Oct 2024 at 14:24 PM

How convenient. A fire - likely under mysterious circumstances as per standard developer playbook

#2 Posted by Lovely on 4 Oct 2024 at 16:06 PM

And meantime if you had applied for modest changes to the B-listed interior you would be told where to get off. Totally counterproductive mismanagement.

#3 Posted by Gideon on 4 Oct 2024 at 17:53 PM

Yeh. Much easier to just burn it down that try to do any form of upgrades to a listed building. No wonder so many are burning down. Planners are as responsible as the arsonists on the developers payroll

#4 Posted by Mrs Kim Crawford on 5 Oct 2024 at 13:55 PM

Laws should be passed immediately. If U own a listed property & don't provide 24hr security,the, if it burns down . You have 2choices, turn it into a public park, grassed area. Or rebuild it as per original spec. No further planning permission should be granted

#5 Posted by Glasgow Bob on 6 Oct 2024 at 17:30 PM

#4 has it, if only the local and national government had money to find such frivolous schemes we could protect our heritage. Anyone for paying more taxes? C'mon you architects put your money where your quill pen is..

#6 Posted by Lovely on 7 Oct 2024 at 09:09 AM

The owners are already legally obligated to maintain these listed buildings and the council are legally obligated to make them do it and have powers to enforce etc.

These already existing powers are sadly not used properly and thus the problems we see.

No need to sell off the quill pen collection for this...

#7 Posted by Edward Harkins on 9 Oct 2024 at 12:00 PM

Not just Glasgow then in which mysterious fires break out suddenly, out-of-hours, in listed properties of existing developer interest.

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