The tenement at the corner of Cross Street and Main Street (2 Cross St/50-52 Main St) in Campbeltown has been made safe, allowing the road to reopen earlier this week (Monday 17 February).

Due to concerns over the safety of the tenement, Argyll and Bute Council took the decision to set up an exclusion zone around it, closing Cross Street to vehicles, although keeping it open for pedestrians to access the businesses in the street.

Since then the council has ensured the safety of the building, commissioning a contractor to buttress the outside of the building with an external scaffold, as well as propping the interior with a steel scaffold structure.

This is the final target building for the Campbeltown Townscape Heritage Initiative (THI), part of the wider CHORD regeneration project. Around £390,000 of THI funding has been ring-fenced to fully repair and renovate the building, bringing it back in to full use.

A developer has been identified and the THI led project can move forward, subject to planning and grant approval. Following on from the recent good news regarding Campbeltown Town Hall, this is a further positive for the town.

Chair of the MAKI Area Committee, which has assumed the responsibility of the old CHORD Project Board, Councillor Rory Colville, said: ‘’We have secured the building for the moment, ahead of the main work beginning in the summer.

‘’Without the intervention of the council, the building may well have been demolished leaving a gap site on the Main Street. Now it will be renovated, with the shop-fronts on the bottom level enhanced and flats for private let on the upper levels, bringing the whole building back in to use.

‘’This propping work is complementary to the future renovation of the building, with the contractor able to use the scaffold in the initial stage of the development.’’