PLANS to knock down a historic school which was ravaged by fire last year have been agreed by councillors – after a report stated that the costs of retaining it could run to millions of pounds.

Members of Inverclyde Council’s Environment and Regeneration Committee agreed at a recent meeting to seek consent to bulldoze the B-listed Clune Park Primary and the historic Clune Park Church next to it, which is also B-listed.

An inferno ripped through the building last August, collapsing sections of its roof and rendering the already run-down former school even more dangerous to the public.

Several elected members quizzed council officers about the possibility of retaining part of the building, which dates back to 1890, but ultimately the committee opted to move ahead with a full demolition.

Greenock Telegraph: Fire at old Clune Park School in Port Glasgow

Council leader Stephen McCabe spoke in support of demolishing the building and highlighted his own involvement in the decision to close the school in 2008.

He said: “I absolutely believed at the time that the right thing for those children was to close Clune Park Primary and move them to Newark and there’s nothing that has happened since then that has changed my mind.

“We’ve seen the deterioration of Clune Park ever since, can you imagine having a school at this point in time? Absolutely not for a second.

“We knew at the time that part of the reasons for objections were people’s emotional attachment to the Clune Park Primary School building.

Greenock Telegraph: Councillor Stephen McCabe.

“Jim McLeod, our late colleague, was a former pupil and he was absolutely at the forefront of the opposition to the closing of Clune Park and maybe because of that emotional attachment.

“We always knew that this day was going to come where we had to make a decision over the future of Clune Park and I suppose before the fire you could argue there was a strong case one way and strong case the other way.

“But I think the fire has fundamentally changed the economics, I don’t believe for a second that it’s economically viable to redevelop this school either for social housing or indeed for private housing.”

He added: “I’m happy to move the recommendation, I got the blame for closing Clune Park Primary School back in 2008 and I may as well get the blame for being the person to move that we progress our application for demolition.”

In a report issued before the meeting, council officers had estimated that work to retain the façade would cost the council around £518k, but warned that further costs were likely to be involved due to the need to meet modern building standards.

They said that these costs could be in the region of £5.3m to £6.4m.

SNP councillor Christopher Curley told his fellow elected members that his preference ‘would have been’ for retention, but added that the fire had changed the picture.  

Greenock Telegraph: Councillor Chris Curley

He said: “I’m conscious of the fact that when you actually look at the money that’s allocated to Clune Park, if we were to spend money on this particular building then the value for money that we would be getting for that wouldn’t necessarily be the best bang for our buck.”

Officers have estimated that flattening the remaining school structure and the nearby Clune Park Resource Centre would incur a one-off cost of £196k, while the cost of demolishing the church is said to be in the region of £70k.

Listed Building consent will be required for the work and council officers will now progress with applying to Historic Environment Scotland for approval.