Families fight to block Wilton Street flats after horror Glasgow tenement collapse

On August 27, 2007, emergency crews were called to 275 Wilton Street, near Queen Margaret Drive, in North Kelvinside after huge cracks appeared in the blonde sandstone building.

Firefighters evacuated five people, including a heavily pregnant woman. Minutes later, the building collapsed.

Police said it was “miracle” that no one was hurt.

Standard Homes Ltd, had started work on a six-storey block of 16 flats on the site adjacent to the building.

The community believes the collapse may have been linked to work that was being carried out to create an underground car park. But inquiries by the Evening Times suggest the cause of the collapse has never been established and the outcome of an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive is not known.

The development was halted and Standard Homes, which was headed up by Nahid Ali and Tanveer Ali, is said to have been dissolved.

The owner of the collapsed block of flats, Jagdish Bassi is understood to have abandoned efforts to bring a legal claim against the developers and the gap site has been lying vacant every since.

Now, a new company Dunand Ltd has been given planning permission to build 16 homes on the site between 259 and 275 Wilton Street. Nahid Ali and Tanveer Ali were listed as directors up until last year.

Dunand is registered on Company House at Ballantyne & Co, 60 St Enoch Square and the new director is listed as Robeena Kahlid. Ms Kahlid and Tanveer Ali are both registered as living at 70 Barrington Drive off Great Western Road.

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City Property, an arms-length organisation of Glasgow City Council, approved the sale of two plots of land to the new company for £150,000 in 2015, meaning the developer now owns three.

The original planning permission was granted in 2005 and there is a deadline for the development to have been completed by February 2020 or the consent runs out.

The developer has applied for an extension and local residents are calling for this to be rejected - as well as a fresh application for a building warrant - on the grounds of “public safety.”

Gil Long, chairwoman of Doune Gardens Lane Community Association, said: “When the tenements fell down, five people almost lost their lives.

“The developers were building an underground car park at the time and we want to know if it had something to do with the collapsed building.

“The DGLCA members are not trying to obstruct reasonable development. They have legitimate concerns that further activity by Dunand Ltd will undermine their recent efforts to improve the environment and that it is the wrong company to undertake such a complex development.

“We don’t have any beef with the council but we are urging City Property to take action and we have received letters of support MSP and local councillors.”

“The DGLCA urges Building Control to refuse any application for a building warrant and the Contracts and Property Committee to refuse any application from Dunand Ltd for an extension of the project completion deadline.”

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Residents say the condition of the land has changed since the collapse of the tenement block, which have created more difficult conditions for a building project.

Local councillor Martha Wardrop, said: “The developer acquired the land in 2017.

“As part of the terms and conditions there is deadline for completion of the development by February 2020.

“There is a request being made for this extension for this not to be granted. The site has been left abandoned and I am not convinced they (the site owners) would be able to complete a development satisfactorily.”

The Evening Times asked Glasgow City Council if there is a link between Standard Home and Dunand Ltd and a spokesman said it, “couldn’t confirm at this stage.”

He added: ”The council sold their partial interest in the site on 25 February 2017 to Dunand Limited, with the sale being approved at GCC’s Executive Committee on 28 August 2015.

“No objections were made.

“I understand that City Property is in discussions with Dunand Limited over their request for an extension to the longstop date for development.”

The Evening Times contacted Anderson Bell Christie, the architects leading the project on behalf of Dunand Ltd but no one was available for comment. We also contacted the accountants Ballantyne & Co but there was no response.

The Wilton Street collapse was not the only one in Glasgow’s recent history. The previous December, families in 16 flats in the West End had to be evacuated when the rear wall of a tenement in Clarence Drive, a conservation area, collapsed.

At the time, there was speculation about the cause, with the finger of blame pointed at a history of subsidence, while others spoke of old mineworkings.

Global warming was also suggested, as the collapse followed high rainfall and raised fears it could be the first of many properties to succumb to the extremes of weather.