Plans to rebuild the Drumtochty Arms Hotel, Auchenblae, which was destroyed in an explosion 19 months ago are on hold.
A Health and Safety Executive report on the blast that ripped through the Mearns hotel and injured three people in January 2009 was lodged in May with the Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS), which has confirmed it is still looking at the case.
A Crown Office spokesman said the report was under consideration by the health and safety division of the COPFS.
The owner, businessman Charles Anderson who also owns nearby Drumtochty Castle, was granted planning permission to rebuild the hotel and pub last December.
Rebuilding work will not begin until the legal process is completed and a spokesman for the hotel said this weekend, “We have no news.”
The hotel was days away from being reopened after a £750,000 refurbishment when it was so extensively damaged, by what is thought to have been a gas explosion, that the building had to be demolished a few days later.
Three people were injured in the accident. One of them was barmaid Danielle Ormond who was buried under rubble and suffered many broken bones and a collapsed lung.
Plans for the new build on the cleared site include the conversion of two adjacent properties.