Read our letter to Glasgow City Council concerning Hillhead Baptist Church

Hillhead Baptist Church has been at the centre of a planning dispute for months and many of you have followed the campaign to save it. Alongside our public statements, the Scottish Civic Trust has also been making our case directly to those with the power to act.

This week, we wrote to Susanne Millar, Chief Executive of Glasgow City Council, setting out in detail why we believe the Planning Committee's decision to allow demolition deserves to be reconsidered.

The letter was co-signed by:

• SAVE Britain's Heritage
• The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings
• Hillhead Community Council
• The Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland
• The Scottish Ecological Design Association

We're publishing that letter in full and we'd encourage everyone who cares about this case to read it.

The case for Hillhead Baptist Church that we set out in the letter

The letter sets out, in detail, why we believed this decision deserved a second look:

• The decision to allow demolition was taken by a small number of committee members, with the Convenor's casting vote proving decisive, despite more than 300 objections from Glasgow residents.
• The building was never advertised for sale in around a decade, allowing it to fall into disrepair before a demolition application was lodged, a pattern that is often described as demolition by neglect, worsened when the roof was removed from this listed building.
• The developer could have profited from retaining the façade of this historic building within one of Glasgow's Conservation Areas but chose complete demolition instead and at least one other interested party was reportedly willing to buy and redevelop the site more sympathetically.
• The decision sits uneasily with NPF4, Scotland's national planning policy, which places growing weight on retaining and reusing existing buildings because of the embodied carbon locked within historic structures like this sizeable 19th century stone church.
• Serious questions remain as to whether the national policy tests for demolishing a listed building were properly met, including whether realistic alternatives such as full retention, partial retention, or façade preservation were fully explored.

The letter concludes that the Planning Committee's decision does not reflect the strength of feeling in Glasgow's communities, and asks for the application to be reconsidered by the full committee.

Why we're publishing it now

As many of you will already know, the Scottish Government has since confirmed it will not call in this decision, so the demolition is expected to proceed. That outcome makes it all the more important that our concerns are on the public record. This letter is our formal case for why the process fell short and it remains relevant to every listed building at risk of the same fate.

The arguments in the letter go well beyond one building, they question how "demolition by neglect" can be allowed to run its course unchecked and whether Scotland's climate and circular economy commitments are being properly weighed in planning decisions across the country.

The Scottish Civic Trust will continue to work with our communities to campaign for the protection and preservation of Scotland's listed buildings.

Read the full letter to Susanne Millar (PDF)

If you share our concerns about Hillhead Baptist Church, or about the protection of listed buildings more widely, please read the letter and share it with others.