Work at the Station Hotel can resume, the Court of Session decided today.
South Ayrshire Council announced that safety work can resume at the scene of the building fire in Ayr.
Council leaders confirmed that work will resume at the weekend.
Previously, work had been drastically halted on Wednesday after hotel owner Sunny Ung – known in official documents as Eng Huat Ung – filed a lawsuit.
Ung accused the local council leaders of demolishing the hotel after the fire in September without properly informing him.
Due to his objection, work on the construction site was halted for three days pending today’s hearing in Edinburgh.
A South Ayrshire Council spokesman said: “The Court of Session has agreed that safety works can continue on site. We will continue to provide updates on construction progress.”
Almost £3 million has been spent dismantling the derelict hotel since an inferno struck it over seven months ago. Since then, train services south of Ayr have been suspended and the line to Glasgow has also been badly affected. This came as councillors made progress on demolishing the north wing of the hotel. They had hoped to complete their work by mid-June.
The local authority acted under section 29 of the Dangerous Buildings (Scotland) Act, which gives it the power to demolish a building site in the interests of public safety. However, Ung and his legal team questioned whether the council had given him “adequate notice of such works”.
A senior council source said after the initial halt in works: “If there was any doubt that Mr Ung cares little about Ayr and its people, here is proof. What does he hope to achieve by halting demolition at this stage of the process? To break his silence after all these years is a particular slap in the face at a time when the town and its people have already endured months of misery following the fire.”
South Ayrshire chiefs were forced to take responsibility for the site back in 2018 when they pinned a dangerous building warning to the once-iconic venue. Since then, they have been plagued by political issues over ownership and have had to spend £65,000 a month on a protective dome just to stop the hotel collapsing. The deliberate fire finally brought the problem to a head and painstaking work has been carried out over the past six months to demolish the dome.
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