Working in partnership with CCG (Scotland) Ltd and MAST Architects, the plans to demolish the former Canal Bar and Restaurant and construct 46 one and two-bedroom flats across two blocks have been recommended for approval by Glasgow City Council planners.

‘The Sawmills’ development takes its name from the Temple Hills Sawmill that once occupied the vacant site between Bearsden Road and Crow Road in the 1930s.  

Upon completion, 24 amenity flats within the development – especially designed for older people - will be managed by Hanover. In addition, there will be a mix of private and communal green space and resident parking.

The development has been designed to meet the ‘Glasgow Standard’ of space and energy efficiency compliance.

Forty-two objections were received including one from the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland.

However, a report by Glasgow planning officers states: “Our starting position as a local authority is always that listed buildings should not be demolished if they can be retained in any way.

“Whilst that was the initial position we took with this proposal, as did Historic Environment Scotland, the updated information received in July 2021 satisfied the City Design’s heritage staff, Building Standards structural staff and Historic Environmental Scotland that the structural damage to the building was now so significant that parts of the structure were not salvageable and would have to come down.

“We then asked the applicant to investigate partial retention of the listed building and that exercise made it clear that the costs of trying to rebuild the listed building (particularly the western elevation) and integrate it into a new development would not be economically viable.

“We also considered the issue of what special interest would be retained were the building to be rebuilt and incorporated into a block of flats and whether a facsimile of the original structure subsumed into a contemporary building would be a satisfactory outcome for the extra resources and financing that would necessarily be involved.

“Following all that, we reluctantly concluded that the demolition of the Category C listed building met the tests in both the Development Plan and within local and national heritage guidance.”

The report added: “The residential proposal to replace that building is appropriate in scale, density and locational terms and meets the aims of Local Development Plan policy.

“In addition to delivering new housing stock for two registered social landlords on a site identified in the council’s housing strategy, the proposals will also see the improvement of the ramp up to Bearsden Road and provide buildings of a contemporary tenemental scale at a key crossing point over the Forth and Clyde Canal.”