Plans to demolish the fire-ravaged O2 ABC on Sauchiehall Street have been given the go ahead due to concerns over public safety. The popular music venue suffered severe damage after a fire broke out at Mackintosh Building in June 2018. recently issued a dangerous buildings notice to the owners, which requires them to demolish the venue by December 9.
At a meeting on Tuesday, councillors on the city’s planning committee approved an application for consent to completely demolish the C-listed building. A planning application for student flats and a food hall on the site has been submitted by developers Vita Group and will be considered separately. There have been calls for the building’s facade to be retained, but a council planner said “full or partial retention of this building is not viable”.
A building standards official told the committee that the owners are “legally obliged” to comply with the dangerous building notice. Councillors also heard from the planning official who said there were two “separate, parallel pieces of legislation progressing”. “If the building is dangerous then it does have to go down and therefore what the listed building application is really doing is verifying that,” she added.
She said the committee could decide on conditions attached to the consent. One condition requires the owners to take “all reasonable steps to salvage materials from the demolished building for reuse, repurposing and recycling”. They must submit a writt.