The sorry saga of Perth City Hall is to drag on well into 2014.
Despite council claims the city can look forward to a future without its former civic centre, significant hurdles are still before it.
Once an application for listed-building consent, required to demolish the building, is before Historic Scotland it could take as little as 28 days to decide its fate.
That decision will be taken unemotionally, despite claims they will be heavily lobbied in the coming weeks.
It has emerged, however, that the public will be allowed to lodge objections to the application, which will require the bid to be brought before the council’s development management committee.
Opponents, including members of the Perth City Market Trust, could then be presented with another opportunity to speak before councillors and attempt to block the hall’s demolition.
It is likely that the process will mean the issue cannot be considered until mid-March at the earliest.
Only then will officers be able to present their case to Historic Scotland assuming a recommendation to demolish is supported.
During that time the taxpayer will continue to pick up the bill for the upkeep of the building, adding as much as £1,000 a month to the £19,000 bill already amassed since the re-marketing was announced.