Successful appeal against demolition of Greenock Methodist Church

SPAB Scotland Casework Volunteer Francis Brown describes how Greenock Methodist Church, Inverclyde, has been saved from demolition, partly thanks to SPAB Scotland’s opposition to the proposal.

In December 2024, SPAB Scotland’s casework team were alerted to a proposal to demolish a former Methodist church in Greenock, Inverclyde, used for worship until 2017 and now owned by a local hospice. The church was built in 1883 in a simple Gothic Revival style, to accommodate the town’s growing Methodist population. Subsequently, the manse was built in 1889, and the organ was installed in 1905. While there was little published history of the building to go on, we were immediately struck by the photos of the interior attached to the application, which revealed the survival of a simple but beautiful hammerbeam timber roof, and a number of (presumably original) fittings including a carved wooden staircase and a large pulpit.

The church is unlisted, but it falls within the Greenock West End Conservation Area. ‘Conservation area consent’ was retained as a separate form of permission in Scotland, after it was merged with planning permission in England in 2013 - so this application was specifically for ‘conservation area consent’ for demolition. Under Scotland’s National Planning Policy Framework 4, the demolition of a building in a conservation area should only be supported when it has been demonstrated that:

1. Reasonable efforts have been made to retain, repair and reuse the building.
2. The building is of little townscape value.
3. The structural condition of the building prevents its retention at a reasonable cost.
4. The form or location of the building makes its reuse extremely difficult.

In this case, SPAB Scotland decided that none of these conditions had been met, and we felt that the demolition had to be opposed. On the 12 December, we wrote a letter to the Regeneration and Planning Department of Inverclyde Council—one of the many letters we send every week—to make our case. We argued that none of the relevant conditions in the NPF4 had been met, and also objected to the demolition on the following grounds:

1. We felt that the demolition had essentially been proposed as a cost-saving exercise, supposedly justified by the fact that the building had been allowed to fall into a state of dilapidation and disrepair by previous owners such that it would be more economical to demolish and rebuild than to repair. We argued that the repair and conserve option had not been sufficiently explored, as it should be in every case before demolition is considered only as a last resort.
2. We also noted that, quite apart from the building’s obvious heritage significance, given the climate emergency due consideration must be given to the ‘embodied carbon’ that every building represents. Whilst demolition is often argued for on the basis that a new building on the site could be made more environmentally friendly than the old one, it is often forgotten that this apparent sustainability saving must be set against the environmental impact of demolition in the first place. However, in this case, no proposals had even been made to redevelop the site, which was to be given over to car parking.

SPAB Scotland were not the only group to challenge this proposal. Historic Environment Scotland and the Scottish Civic Trust also objected, making a number of the same points as we did, and others.

On the 6 January 2025, we were delighted to hear that the application had been refused by the local planning authority: Greenock Methodist Church had been saved from demolition.

The decision was made for a number of reasons. Not least of these was that, as we had shown, none of the conditions for demolition in a conservation area as set out in the NPF4 had been met. More generally, the report stated that the demolition would entail the loss of a building of ‘architectural, historic and cultural interest’ - everything that we, and other societies like us, work to protect.

This was an enormously gratifying success for SPAB Scotland, and we will be keen to offer our support for, and advice on, developing alternative proposals for the site. In particular, we encourage proposals for the sensitive repair and adaptive reuse of historic buildings, such as Greenock Methodist Church.

Finally, this case is far from unique, and more of Scotland’s churches of various denominations are being sold off into private hands every month. This means that we see multiple applications for the change of use, repair and adaptive reuse, and sadly the demolition of these buildings each week, which we do our best to monitor and comment on. Unlike in England, amenity societies such as the SPAB aren’t statutory consultees for these applications in Scotland, so we don’t get automatically alerted to them. Actively seeking them out is therefore one of the main tasks for our small casework team - and there is plenty of work still to be done!

Image: wikimedia commons