A PUBLIC meeting on the future of Ayr's Station Hotel will take place this month.

The meeting, which has been organised by the Ayr Station Hotel Action Group, will feature speakers who will argue on the importance of the hotel for the area. 

The building which opened in 1885 was once a plush hotel in its hey day of the 1950s.

But in 2019 a structural report revealed 1,000 defects with estimated repair costs of £10 million.

The Action Group have worked over the past few years to save category B listed building and have called on the absentee foreign owner to sell the building so a restoration can take place.

Chair of Ayr Station Hotel Community Action Group, Esther Clark, told the Advertiser: "We will also have input on the advantages of conservation over demolition and the benefits which skills development could bring to the local economy.

"South Ayrshire Council (SAC) issued a Dangerous Building Notice (DBN) in 2013 to Network Rail and the Hotel owner Mr Ung which indicated four problem areas and was two pages long.

"Mr Ung repointed the Front Elevation and tried to do the Rear Elevation but was denied proper access by Network Rail. The two roof repairs were never done. These are the areas causing most concern now.

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"SAC soon has to decide what is best for Ayr. It must have regard to all the facts of the case and to the outcomes.

The Action Group has tried to find and make information available to everyone. We want Network Rail to make good the areas that they have abandoned and replaced with two generations of portacabins along platform 1, and start to use its Platform 4 buildings for passenger amenities rather than rent them out to a joinery company.

"We would like SAC to either negotiate with the owner Mr Ung to facilitate a private sale as almost happened a couple of years ago.

"Alternatively they might negotiate a CPO and perhaps agree a Back to Back agreement with a Trust, as almost happened 4 years ago with the Scottish Historic Buildings Trust."

The meeting will take place on Wednesday, September 28 at 7.30pm Ayr Town Hall.