Councillors have unanimously agreed to fund the demolition of an asbestos-riddled toilet block at a controversy-hit Angus caravan park.
The block, which has been declared redundant since new facilities were constructed at South Links Holiday Park, has fallen into a state of disrepair, with tiles coming off the roof, and windows boarded up.
The building, branded “unsightly” by council staff, is fenced off to site users.
Electrical switch gear is housed in the basement of the building, but the remainder of the building has been declared surplus to requirements.
The £73,000 cost of the works, which will see the building demolished to ground level, but retaining the basement, will make the park more visually appealing to visitors, and provide additional amenity space say council officers.
Elected members backed the views of officers who had submitted five options, but preferred the demolition option, against other scenarios which included doing nothing, partially removing the upper half of the building at a cost of £89,000, or retaining the building but effecting repairs on the structure at a cost of £52,000.
The site is owned by Angus Council, but licence had been granted to an independent operator in 2009.
The possibility of Montrose becoming the site of a major biopharma project by GlaxoSmithKline that would have seen a £500 million investment and the creation of up to 500 jobs meant that negotiations between the council and operator to relocate the caravan park to accommodate the expanded GSK site began.
With the prospect of the largest known inward investment made in Angus, councillors agreed in a closed door meeting in 2011 to grant a loan to the caravan park licensee, which would have been repaid once GSK and the operator WOW Leisure concluded a compensation package, but GSK did not proceed with their investment in Montrose and the new factory was located in Cumbria.
The local authority was subsequently hit by a compensation claim by the park operator for more than £800,000 losses it considered to have suffered over the period of business standstill.
Angus Council took back control of the South Links site and long-term residents were eventually evicted from their holiday homes.
The local authority continues to run the site and currently charges pitch rental of £2460 per year.
