Blaze leaves 'gaping hole' in the heart of Edinburgh

Large sections of one of the most historic areas of Edinburgh will have to be demolished after the devastating fire in the heart of the city this weekend, officials admitted yesterday.

Contractors will arrive this morning at the site in the Old Town to decide which of the 11 badly damaged buildings will have to be torn down as a result of the blaze, which broke out on Saturday night.

At least two blocks, including a listed Georgian tenement that has been described as one of Europe's first experiments in high-rise building, are likely to come down within days because of fears that they will collapse.

Edinburgh City Council, which was only expected to be given control of the scene yesterday evening after a firefighting operation lasting almost 72 hours, confirmed that others will certainly follow.

After touring the scene, Donald Anderson, the leader of the council, said: "We will try to make sure that we retain whatever historical character we can but there is going to be extensive demolition. We have a gaping hole in the very heart of the city."

The emergence of the need for a major redevelopment in streets once walked by 18th-century luminaries such as the architect Robert Adam and the philosopher David Hume came as the city began to count the cost of the blaze, which has left nearly 60 people homeless.

The damaged area ­ close to important buildings such as the Old College of Edinburgh University ­ is within a World Heritage site designated in 1995 by Unesco, putting it on a par with the Taj Mahal and central Bath. Roads around the centre of the Scottish capital remained shut as firefighters continued to dampen down the charred ruins of buildings at the seat of the fire, which have continued to smoulder.

Senior fire officers said the damage caused by the blaze had been worsened by the "rabbit warren" of interlinked business and residential properties contained within the eight-storey tenements.

Forensic experts were also continuing to examine what remains of the upper floors of La Belle Angèle, the nightclub where the fire broke out shortly before 8pm.

Despite hundreds of revellers being crowded into the area ­ a low-lying thoroughfare called the Cowgate lined with many pubs and clubs ­ no one was seriously injured by the ensuing blaze.

The Lothian and Borders Fire Brigade, which had deployed more than 100 firefighters at the height of the blaze, said it could be weeks before its cause was known. A spokeswoman said: "The extent of the damage, which has left some buildings just empty shells, is going to make the task of our fire investigation officers all the more difficult."

As insurers confirmed that the cost of the damage was likely to run into dozens of millions of pounds, architecture experts said it had destroyed some unique examples of urban building.

Dr Sean O'Riley, director of the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland, said: "These were structures produced when the only way to build was to go upwards because of limited space. It was a bold concept for the time.

"As a result we have buildings that are very complex, linking two street levels. We would ask the authorities to move as slowly as is safe when they consider which buildings to knock down."

But other experts said the extent of the damage was not as bad as it might have been. There had been fears at the height of the blaze in the early hours of Sunday that it could jump across rooftops and spread towards the city's Royal Mile.

A spokesman for Historic Scotland, the government heritage agency, said: "We will be working very hard to preserve the historical context but it doesn't seem that any category-A buildings have been destroyed."

The two buildings already earmarked for demolition are a former department store on South Bridge, now home to an amusement arcade, and the category-C listed tenement on Cowgate holding the Belle Angèle and the Gilded Balloon, a popular venue during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and one of the country's best-known comedy clubs. Both buildings could be torn down as soon as tomorrow to allow workers to clear rubble and reopen some of the streets closed to traffic.

Edinburgh City Council said that Of the 164 people evacuated from the area, 144 were still in temporary accommodation last night. A total of 54 have had their homes destroyed.