{"id":143156,"date":"2018-06-19T09:25:32","date_gmt":"2018-06-19T09:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/glasgow-art-school-fire-council-leader-has-hope\/"},"modified":"2018-06-19T09:25:32","modified_gmt":"2018-06-19T09:25:32","slug":"glasgow-art-school-fire-council-leader-has-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/glasgow-art-school-fire-council-leader-has-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"Glasgow Art School fire: Council leader has hope"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>                                  <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Fire damaged art school and ABC\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/D322\/production\/_102105045_hi047512369.jpg\"\/>Image copyright                  PA                                                    <\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">There is &quot;hope&quot; for the future of Glasgow School of Art after it was gutted in a massive blaze, according to the leader of the city council. <\/p>\n<p>Construction experts have suggested the historic Mackintosh building could be so badly damaged, it would have to be torn down. <\/p>\n<p>But council leader Susan Aitken said the early indications were that it was not in imminent danger of collapse. <\/p>\n<p>Ms Aitken said the council&#039;s focus would be to save the building.<\/p>\n<p>She  told BBC Radio Scotland: &quot;We are certainly not writing off the Mackintosh building yet.&quot;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Residents promised help after fire<\/li>\n<li>Demolition or restoration: What next for the Mack?<\/li>\n<li>The other building lost to the flames<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Firefighters have been at the scene of the blaze, which also devastated the nearby O2 ABC music venue, for more than 72 hours. <\/p>\n<p>At its height, there were more than 120 firefighters involved in the operation. Three appliances remained at the scene on Monday. <\/p>\n<figure>                                                                                                       Image copyright                  Police Scotland                                                     <\/figure>\n<p>In an interview on Good Morning Scotland, Ms Aitken said initial superficial assessments have carried out by officials including building control officers. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;Certainly I think the consensus is that there is hope and and we are certainly not writing off the Mackintosh building yet,&quot; she said. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;Our intention, our focus will be to try and save that building and finding a future for it, but it&#039;s very early days.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>It is the second time in four years that the art school has been badly damaged in a major blaze. <\/p>\n<p>The Mackintosh building was at the centre of a \u00a335m restoration project, overseen by Kier Construction, when the fire broke out late on Friday night. <\/p>\n<p>One expert has suggested the cost of restoring the building after the latest fire could be more than \u00a3100m.<\/p>\n<p>When Ms Aitken was pressed on whether she was willing to back restoration at any cost, she replied: &quot;It&#039;s far too early to start talking about cost.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;We have seen lots of figures flying about but they are purely speculative. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;There&#039;s no one who&#039;s able to put a price on this at the moment.&quot; <\/p>\n<figure>                                                                                                       Image copyright                  PA                                                    <\/figure>\n<p>Building expert Billy Hare compared the blaze to that which gutted the building housing Victoria&#039;s nightclub on Sauchiehall Street in March. <\/p>\n<p>The professor of construction management pointed out that the council very quickly took the decision to demolish that building. <\/p>\n<p>But Ms Aitken said that decision was taken because it was unstable and in danger of &quot;imminent collapse&quot;. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;That&#039;s not the case, we think, with the Mackintosh building at the moment,&quot; she said. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;Having said that, it is very early days. The initial assessments are that what remains of the building is largely structurally solid but it is really, really early days.&quot;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In Pictures: Glasgow School of Art fire<\/li>\n<li>How Glasgow became the Tinderbox City<\/li>\n<li>Timeline: The art school&#039;s devastating years<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>She said there was a consensus that the council should work with other organisations including the Scottish and UK governments to restore the building if it is possible.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;But there are many, many issues to be explored before we can give definitive answers on that,&quot; she added. <\/p>\n<p>Ms Aitken will lead a meeting later with business representatives on the future of Sauchiehall Street in the wake of the fires at the art school and Victoria&#039;s nightclub. <\/p>\n<p>She said businesses inside the cordon set up by the fire service are being invited to apply for zero-rating on business rates. <\/p>\n<p>On Monday, fire investigators promised to find out what caused the blaze. <\/p>\n<p>Assistant Chief Officer David McGown said a &quot;comprehensive and professional&quot; probe will be carried out.<\/p>\n<p>He said it was still too early to speculate if the fire started in the art school or in a nearby building.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright PA There is &quot;hope&quot; for the future of Glasgow School of Art after it was gutted in a massive blaze, according to the leader of the city council.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":143157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}