Border Telegraph | News | There will be blood despite roof coming down

Wednesday, 20th August, 2008

Published: Wednesday, 16th July, 2008 09:00

There will be blood despite roof coming down

By David Knox

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YEARS of neglect have brought the roof down on Selkirk’s most famous building.

Masonry and plasterwork crashed onto the floor of the treasured Victoria Halls last Wednesday night.

And gaping holes forced local blood transfusion organizers to ditch plans for a donor session over the weekend.

The listed Victorian building is used as Selkirk’s town hall, regularly hosting Common Riding functions, weddings, graduation ceremonies and amateur operatic performances.

But 580-capacity main hall was turned into a disaster zone as a leaking roof led to the ceiling collapse.

And local councillor Kenny Gunn is in no doubt where the blame lies. He told us: “There has been a total lack of maintenance on our public buildings for years by Scottish Borders Council.

“This latest problem is simply because of a lack of preventative measures which should be taking place regularly and don’t.

“The Victoria Halls is one of the most important buildings in Selkirk and should be given the respect it deserves.

“You only have to look at the outside of the building or along at the Town Clock to see these buildings aren’t being maintained properly.”

The imposing sandstone building dates from 1896 and underwent refurbishment in the mid 1980s.

Workmen from the council arrived at the 19th Century building on Thursday morning to start repair work.

A spokeswoman for the local authority said: “We were in the hall first thing on Thursday morning with joiners and roofers who made the area safe.

“On Friday scaffolding was installed and the roof was made watertight.

“The damage has all been fixed and is being redecorated this week.”

But the hall was still unusable last weekend. And the Scottish Blood Transfusion Service has to make a last-minute switch for their Sunday donor session.

A spokesman told the Border Telegraph: “We sent staff down on Friday to have a look at the hall on Friday to see if we could go-ahead but it wasn’t possible.

“We managed to salvage the situation at the last moment by relocating to Connections and we are grateful to the people at Connections for that.”

Despite the 11th-hour change of venue 156 units of blood were still donated.

editorial@bordertelegraph.com

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