You may remember the story of the Vogue, the old art deco cinema in the north of Glasgow. It was very nearly demolished – I stood and watched the guys in hard hats starting to rip it apart last year. But there was a stushie, the council intervened (eventually), the building was listed (just in time) and everyone thought: good, it’s been saved. But I bring you bad news: a new battle is being fought over the building. It’s not over yet.

We knew this was a possibility last summer when Historic Environment Scotland (HES) announced they were listing the cinema as a building of special historic and architectural interest, giving it official legal protection. In the small print of the announcement was that Allied Vehicles, who own the building, could appeal to the Scottish Government within six months and in due course that is what they did.

Appeals in this area are heard by the Scottish Government’s planning and environmental appeals division and a hearing was held this week. In attendance were HES, lawyers for the owners, and Glasgow City Council among others, and over three and a half hours, Alasdair Edwards, the official who’ll make the decision on behalf of the government, heard evidence on how the building came to be nearly demolished, how it came to be listed by HES, what the council’s role was in all of this, and whether the ultimate decision to list and protect the building was the right one.

This was not a hearing, I have to say, that revealed how beautifully and efficiently the council and government agencies are working in this area: far from it. The owners of the Vogue were initially given a warrant by the council to demolish the building and it would appear this was granted without any real proper process or criteria for efficiently and fairly judging the application. It seems there were no inspections, no checks, no real questions asked. It looks to me like the demolition warrant was waved through.

It gets worse. Judging from what the Glasgow officials told the hearing, it would seem there’s no system for council departments to properly speak to each other on this subject. Building control (who issue the demolition warrants) did not communicate with planning (in charge of preservation and conservation) to discuss whether there were any issues around the Vogue they should be looking at and whether it was worth saving, which beggars belief.

The role Historic Environment Scotland played is also confusing to say the least. The hearing heard that HES first started looking into listing the Vogue in July 2023 when a member of the public raised the issue. In due course, they decided the building, which is on Balmore Road in Possilpark, did pass the test for special architectural interest but said they wouldn’t list it because the council had issued a demolition warrant. The logic of this escapes me: one of the aims of listing is to prevent demolition and yet the demolition warrant seems to have trumped HES’s opinion that the building should be protected. It should be the other way around.

As you may remember, there was then a stushie and outcry at the start of last year when the public started to find out what was going on with the Vogue and it would appear that the council and HES suddenly thought: oh, maybe we’ve got this wrong. Having just issued a demolition warrant, the council then issued a building preservation order. HES also re-started their process, looked into listing again and decided this time around that the building should be listed after all.

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Whatever the shortcomings of the procedure – and they’re considerable – the ultimate decision to list the building was the right one. I’ve been up to see it several times now and although it’s pretty rackety and neglected and now partially demolished at the back, it’s still possible to see why the front section of the building should be saved.

Let me tell you a bit more about it. It was built in the 1930s for the folk moving into the new Possilpark housing estate and it’s a fine example of the kind of cinemas the designer James McKissack was building at the time. It’s also one of only a few of McKissack’s cinemas that still survive and, importantly, it’s an architectural landmark in an area of Glasgow that’s seen a lot of change, decline and neglect. Demolish the Vogue and you’d remove the last significant building of distinction left in that part of the city.

We must hope the appeal will confirm this position and support the decisions that HES and the council came to in the end. We should also be thankful that the Vogue was eventually listed despite a process that seems to be as rackety and neglected as the building itself. The petition that’s sprung up to save the cinema has demonstrated how a lot of local people feel about the Vogue and the potential loss of another piece of working class history. It demonstrates the cultural and social significance of buildings that should, and must, be at the heart of the listing system.

(Image: The Vogue is in Possilpark)

Of course, the fact that the Vogue should be protected and listed doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be asking questions about the process that got us here. The lawyers for the owners told the hearing they felt the process had been unfair; their contractors were granted a warrant for demolition by the council, started the demolition and were then told they had to stop because the council was issuing a preservation order. The owner’s case is that two different, inconsistent decisions were made on essentially the same facts and I have some sympathy with how frustrating that must have been for them.

But the appeal that’s being heard just now is about the merits of the eventual decision to list the Vogue and that’s how it will be decided. I said in January last year, when I watched those guys in hard hats starting to tear it apart, that I thought the cinema would be gone within weeks. Thankfully, I was wrong and it’s still hanging on in there.

But the threat remains. There were signs at the hearing for instance that the owners may try to rely on that old familiar tactic that the building has become “unsafe”. The appeal may also conclude in the end that the decision to list it was wrong, which I hope doesn’t happen because that really would mean the end for the Vogue. What happens next? I’m not sure. But the final decision will be made in June. I’ll keep you posted.