About

What's it all about?

Perth and Kinross Council has decided to sell Coupar Angus Town Hall unless local people are prepared to take over the running of the building for the benefit of the community under a Community Asset Transfer. The building is one of the town's Common Good assets, i.e. property that was owned by the community (see the Common Good Act of 1491). Therefore if it is sold, the proceeds will go towards the Common Good Fund for the town.

Local people have made it very clear that they miss their Town Hall (see Local Support) and want to see this magnificent building saved, so that it can once again play a central role in the cultural and civic life of the town. In response, Cascade Institute is exploring ways to bring the building into community ownership.

The first steps are:

Set up group: Set up a group with a constitution (rule book), enabling the community to own the building and decide what activities take place there.
Business plan: Develop a 5-year business plan, explaining how we are going to fund the maintenance of the building.
Community consultation: We need to show that we have the support of the community, and that we asked local people about the sort of activities they would like to see in the building.
Submit application: Having completed the first 3 steps, we will be able to submit our application to Perth and Kinross Council.

Deadline
The Council will meet on 27th October 2025 to decide whether to accept our application, so we need to complete all of these steps before then, preferably by mid-October at the latest.

Background
Coupar Angus Town Hall, also known as Victoria Hall, was built by public subscription in 1887 to mark Queen Victoria's Jubilee. Prominent contributors included David McFarlane the industrialist, who was Provost of the Burgh from 1875 to 1895, and the railway engineer Sir Robert Gillespie Reid who, with his brother William (both from Coupar Angus), expanded the rail network in the USA and Canada. Further information can be found in Wikipedia.

Since then, the Hall has played a central role in the historic, cultural and civic life of the town. It was home to the Town Council and later the Community Council and was regularly used for ceilidhs, public meetings, bingo teas, indoor curling (for elderly and disabled people), badminton and other sports, exercise classes, karate classes, exhibitions, indoor markets and many other things. It also hosted the town library from 1987. All of these are greatly missed.

After the Town Council was abolished in 1975, Victoria Hall became the property - and responsibility - of Perth and Kinross Council. Since then, the building has been subject to decades of neglect. For example the windows at the sides and back of the building were last painted in 1999. A formal complaint to Perth and Kinross Council (P&KC) was upheld (see Council's response).

Perth and Kinross Council closed the Hall in March 2020 due to the Covid lockdown. At the end of 2021 it committed £200,000 to essential maintenance, and promised to reopen the building in December 2022 (see letter from Perth and Kinross Council to John Swinney). However, on 8 December 2022, the Council stated that having spent £116,000, mostly on a new heating system, they had to spend the remaining budget elsewhere - see letter dated 8 December 2022.

Subsequently P&KC carried out a review of all its assets with a view to cutting costs. The Council's report on the costs of maintaining the Town Hall can be downloaded here. It is something of a mystery that while the Council was facing such economic difficulties it gave £824,000 towards the cost of converting the former Trades Lane Medical Centre into the Strathmore Community Hub. While this has proved to be an excellent community facility for Coupar Angus, for example providing and attractive community cafe, as well as meeting rooms for various groups, it is too small for many of the activities that took place at the Town Hall.