THERE is no 'guarantee' the transformation of the historic King George VI building in Port Glasgow will be complete in May, Inverclyde Council has said.

The local authority has already invested £1 million in making the B-listed property wind and watertight, while £1.2m of Scottish Government funding was secured to restore the heritage structure.

However, the work has been hit with delays because of poor ground conditions and below-ground drainage issues, with progress at the site being 'monitored closely' by the council.

Councillor Natasha McGuire, Labour representative for Inverclyde South, raised the subject at last week's education and communities committee as a report on capital projects was discussed.

“My question is on the King George VI building,” she said. “Within that, it’s obviously explaining what some of the challenges are there.

“I was just wondering how confident are we actually on that May 2024 completion?

READ MORE: Council chief quizzed over delayed project to transform historic Port building

“We’ve got here that a formal extension has been awarded [until] May but I just wanted to understand realistically for ourselves, do we foresee that maybe spreading a bit later into the year?”

Eddie Montgomery, the council’s head of physical assets, said regeneration of the King Street building – seeing it converted into a community hub – had been a 'particularly challenging project'.

He responded: “You’ll not be surprised to hear me say that I can’t give you a guarantee that the project will complete in May. We are only in January. There are still a number of months to go.

“As the update suggests, there’s a few critical operations happening at the moment, including the underfloor heating. There’s still a number of service installations to progress and complete as well.

“It has been a particularly challenging project. You’ve probably heard me say that at a few of the committees. It continues to be so. We are keeping all of our focus on it to try and get it over the line.

“But, as I say, we can’t give you a guarantee at this stage because there’s a few months to go and there’s always challenges in a project like this.”