South Ayrshire Council put former Ayr Grammar school back on market after failed sale

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A historic former primary school is back on the market — just a year after being flogged by South Ayrshire Council.Ayr Grammar, on the town's Midton Road, was sold off to a private developer by officials last September.

But Ayrshire Live can reveal that the deal has fallen through — leaving council chiefs once again trying to shift the property.They took more than eight months to get the building off their books when going to the market last year.Pupils were decanted from the historic site to the refurbished Ayr Academy building on Fort Street.The Museum of Ayrshire Group had hoped to secure the property via a Community Asset Transfer during last year's bidding process, aiming to develop it into a top museum visitor attraction.At the time, they blamed the council for "a lack of imagination, initiative, foresight, and enthusiasm on helping to support and establish this major cultural, educational, social, and tourist initiative on an ideal, once-in-a-generation, prestigious, council-owned site next to the town centre."They branded the council's response to their proposals as "at best lukewarm, and at times negative and obstructive, towards our progress with Community Asset Transfer procedures".The group hoped to turn the building into a museum about the region’s history, with displays beginning at Geology and the Ice Age period right through to modern-day Ayrshire and the changes the county has seen over the past 60 years.Now the council has been forced back to the drawing board after their buyer failed to complete on the terms of sale agreed last year.A council spokesperson confirmed: "The proposed sale of the former Ayr Grammar was not concluded and it is back on the market.