Eyesore Council can knock down neglected site – and bill the owner

COUNCIL chiefs have been granted the power to demolish one of Bristol’s most notorious eyesore buildings - and then send the bill to the owner who has refused to do anything with it for more than 20 years.

- Tristan CORK

The court order has given new hope to residents living around the Kernow building in St Werburghs that it will eventually be redeveloped.

The large building on the corner of Mina Road and Tyne Street in St Werburgh’s has been empty and falling apart for around 25 years. In the 1980s and 1990s, it was once the home of Kernow Audio and Sound hi-fi store, but has been left without maintenance and repair since the turn of the 21st century.

After the roof collapsed last year, in the autumn residents renewed their campaign to get the council to act. Bristol City Council has previously taken legal action against the building’s owner, landlord and property owner Mushtaq Ahmed, but he has merely been fined for failing to comply with community protection notices and remedial orders, and has only erected scaffolding rather than sorted out the building.