Initial declarations around reinstating the Union Corner building in the wake of the fire beside Central Station have become muddled by escalating plans for neighbourhood regeneration and continuing conversations around funding. Lessons of the recent past show how quickly masterplans can be enveloped by inertia.

At the first full council meeting since the devastating fire at Union Corner, Leader of the Council Susan Aitken said the recovery would be “complex and challenging”, but added: “Other cities have faced greater losses and turned them into opportunities and we have to do the same.” Looking at the recent history of Glasgow, particularly the city centre, does not provide much evidence of this scenario.

In the wake of the fire, First Minister John Swinney said SNP ministers will hand over millions of pounds to help the recovery of the “national asset” of Glasgow from the fire that broke out in a vape shop and took out a building that had stood for 175 years in a matter of hours.

A financial package worth up to £10 million to help the council, businesses and agencies rebuild and renew the part of the city affected by the Union Corner fire was confirmed with a grant scheme to support recovery efforts near Glasgow Central station where around 71 businesses were damaged or destroyed by the fire. Up to £1 million was made available to help the council with demolition costs.

Council officials are meeting with the UK Government next week. Cllr Aitken said at the first full council meeting since the fire: “I hope that will be a positive one and we can secure some additional funding from the UK Government as well.”

So far, so good. Glasgow will rebuild. A recovery group including representatives from Network Rail and the Scottish Government has been set up to chart a future for the site. It will be a national effort supported by the Scottish Government and the UK Government.

A clear, linear pathway to reinstatement then begins to get confused. Both on and off the record briefings have mentioned the complications arising from ownership of the Union Corner building. The fire-damaged Victoria’s nightclub building on Sauchiehall Street was demolished eight years ago and there is no sign of progress at that site, with ownership cited as a contributing factor. The council has said it does not envisage this recovery entering a similar quagmire. The intentions of the current owners of the site have been absent from the broader public discourse, aside from an acknowledgement that they are in discussions with the council.

Elsewhere on Sauchiehall Street, the future direction of restoration plans for The Glasgow School of Art’s world-renowned Mackintosh Building will depend on the outcome of an insurance arbitration hearing. The process will decide where the responsibility lies for the funding of a rebuild projected to cost in excess of £100 million.

The A-listed landmark, one of the most significant structures in Scotland was seriously wounded by a fire in 2014. Near the conclusion of a delicate restoration project that followed, the building was gutted by a devastating fire in 2018 that also led to the partial demolition of the neighbouring ABC building on Sauchiehall Street. The reinstatement of the Art School’s Mack building will not be completed within the next decade.

Cllr Aitken says the public should not expect similar years of inaction for Union Corner: “I think people will need to be patient, yes, absolutely. But they shouldn’t be endlessly patient. They should be looking for progress and they should be asking what progress is being made.”

Cllr Aitken said: “We will recover and regenerate and turn this loss into a gain of a really great city centre neighbourhood surrounding one of the most important transport gateways into Glasgow and Scotland.

“There is never a good time for a disaster like this, but it’s particularly frustrating that this has happened not only as we are just about to host our second Commonwealth Games but also when Glasgow city centre is undergoing its biggest transformation since the Edwardian era, with levels of both public and private investment that we have not seen in decades.”

Councillors agreed to produce a masterplan to regenerate what was referred to in the meeting as the Central Station quarter, and push the UK Government to match already committed Scottish Government funding. The scope has moved beyond reinstating the Union Corner building into other unexpected territory.

When Cllr Aitken has spoken about what the now demolished building will be in the future she has repeatedly talked about a “grand hotel”, or more recently a residential development with “sought-after” apartments on the upper floors, foreshadowing what could be deemed the opportunity in a future rebuild.

Sauchiehall Street has yet to be brought under the umbrella of this plan for city centre revival. The fires there which created pockmarks on one of Scotland’s most famous streets have not been identified for Scottish Government or Westminister intervention.

Cllr Aitken said the recovery will require “considerable time, resource, patience and goodwill, but it does not need to knock us off course”.

The council leader stated that the Union Street fire recovery group - set up a week after the fire with partners from the public and private sector as well as the city’s heritage community - will “chart a strategic way forward for the wider Central Station area beyond the immediate recovery phase”.

It will consider existing plans like Gordon Street public realm improvements and the potential compulsory purchase of the Egyptian Halls on Union Street as well as “emerging opportunities like the NCP car park in Mitchell Street”.

Cllr Aitken said the group won’t “rush into any hasty decisions” about the fire site. “Not least because right now, its ownership is still in multiple hands, none of them ours.”

Cllr Ruairi Kelly, SNP, the council’s convener for built heritage and development, said: “While the initial response was about a faithful reinstatement, I think it’s right that we take a bit of time to have a think about what the area can offer to the city.”

The recent history of Glasgow’s reaction to major fires has been categorised by either crippling inaction or rushed replacement with little thought to the options for reinstatement. Derelict sites remain a feature of the city centre. Sauchiehall Street stands as a cautionary tale. The reaction to the Union Corner produced an initial determination to reinstate the Union Corner. Groups and individuals across Glasgow stated that they were not prepared to endure the saga of previous excruciatingly protracted reactions to major fires.

One month after the shocking blaze that became international news, the clear objective to restore the fire ravaged site beside Union Corner is already blurred in a haze of wider objectives. The site of the demolished building needs focused objectives for progress to be made.

If there is to be a broader mission for accelerated renewal for Glasgow, then there are key sites in the city centre that should be also be considered moribund national assets in need of urgent action.