Precedent saves hotel's splendour: Secretary of State takes action to protect Georgian crescent from decay

PETER BROOKE, the Secretary of State for National Heritage, has served a compulsory purchase order on the owner of the former St Ann's Hotel, in Buxton, Derbyshire, part of one of the most important Georgian buildings in England.

Prompted by an alleged 'lack of any significant progress' on repairs, it is the first time in the history of the statutory control of listed buildings that a CPO has been served by the secretary of state, rather than by a local planning authority.

Last December the National Heritage Department issued a notice demanding that the hotel's owner, Capitalrise Ltd, carry out extensive repairs to the roof and masonry and eliminate wet and dry rot.

After announcing the order in the Commons, Robert Key, a national heritage minister, said: 'We have bent over backwards to be reasonable about this. Under the law we needed to give the owners two months to carry out repairs but we have given them three. But we were not prepared to allow the building to deteriorate any further.

'This is an important exercise between the department, English Heritage, High Peak Borough Council and Derbyshire County Council, which will no doubt be replicated.' The hotel takes up two-thirds of The Crescent, built between 1779 and 1789 for the 5th Duke of Devonshire by the architect, John Carr of York, as lodgings to a new spa. It began to deteriorate after St Ann's Hotel was closed in 1989 over hygiene breaches.

Capitalrise, which can appeal against the CPO, was offered a pounds 225,000 grant by English Heritage, based on a schedule of repairs which estimated that pounds 900,000 needed to be spent immediately. It is not known why Capitalrise, or the mortgagees, the Bank of Egypt, rejected the offer. It is believed that at least another pounds l5m is needed to convert the building.

A report on possible future uses for the building by English Heritage, the borough council and the county council, which owns the other third of The Crescent, doubts if one single use could ever be commercially viable. It recommends a mixture of uses including some which would generate more life in the town.

Interest has been expressed in part of the building by Chethams Music School, in Manchester. Its headmaster, Peter Hullah, said: 'We are looking into the possibility of finding a place where part of the school could live and work near to Manchester and as a base for musicians to come and take master classes.'

Other ideas include a home for the Victoria & Albert Museum's embroidery and tapestry museum or a complementary medicine centre.

The repairs will now be coordinated by the borough council and the building will pass into trust or private ownership.

(Photograph omitted)