South Ayrshire Council has announced that emergency works at the building adjacent to Ayr Railway Station are nearing completion.
Scaffolding surrounding the dangerous building is in place and work to encapsulate the roof and exterior is days away from being finished.
Some exterior netting has still to be added but once this has been actioned, the protective measures put in place to meet the Council’s statutory duties with regards to public safety will be complete.
As a result of this announcement, Scotrail Alliance has made the decision that as of 20th December 2018, they will run a full train service from Ayr Railway Station.
An exclusion zone is still in place as it’s still a dangerous building — the former ticket office area and some sections of the platforms still remain off-limits for public safety reasons but this is not affecting the rail service itself. There are no plans to remove the exclusion zone at present.
Work on the full structural survey had to stop for the scaffolding work to take place. This survey work will restart in January 2019 with a report expected to be provided in February 2019 – although this will be subject to safe access to complete the survey works.
Councillor Douglas Campbell, Leader of South Ayrshire Council said: “This has been a long process but we are nearing the end of the statutory works.
“Throughout this process our focus has remained on keeping the public safe and working to ensure a full train service could operate as quickly as possible, so it’s great news that all train services will be up and running before Christmas.
“We will continue to keep people safe and link with Transport Scotland, Network Rail, ScotRail and other Task Force partners to consider the options in relation to the privately owned building in the New Year.”