A housing developer faces with paying a £2million bill to restore a Dumbarton landmark or abandoning an already started 22-home project.

Bett Homes Limited agreed to restore the run-down Helenslee House – the former Keil School – as a condition of planning permission to build homes on the site, but has called on West Dunbartonshire Council planners to scrap the requirement. The firm has already built 10 houses and a block of 12 flats in the former school grounds, and now wants West Dunbartonshire Council to drop the stipulation that to build more on the site Betts Homes Limited has to revamp the B-listed building.

However, council planners recommend that the planning committee opposes the bid at its meeting this afternoon.

The housing developer has outstanding planning permission to build 11 houses and 12 flats at the site but these cannot be finished until Helenslee House is repaired, restored and converted to the satisfaction of the planning committee. The historic house is run down and has been targeted by vandals and firebugs and the housing firm claims it is ‘no longer possible’ to comply with the conditions.

But a report set to go before the council’s planning committee states that the council understands Historic Scotland believe the house ‘remains capable of restoration’.

The report refers to an assessment the developer commissioned by an independent consultant which found the building has fire and water damage, but ‘no obvious signs of major structural issues and the building would therefore be capable of re-use and conversion following careful structural interventions’.

It continues: “However, the assessment also recognised that restoration of the building would be extremely expensive. The assessment estimates the likely cost of restoring and converting the building as £2 million and concludes that the cost of the works would substantially exceed the income generated from sale of the resultant flats.” The report reveals that the housing firm’s debt on the site, if it were to vacate with no further development, stands at £4.14 million and it claims if it was to knock down Helenslee House and develop the rest of the site it would have to build 30 more houses to claw back the cost.

The council’s director of infrastructure and regeneration, Richard Cairns, recommends councillors refuse permission to drop the conditions when they decide on the issue at today's meeting.

In the report, he said: “The restoration and conversion of the ‘B’ listed Helenslee House is important to the character and amenity of the Kirktonhill Conservation Area and is an integral part of the wider Keil School redevelopment.

“The new houses and flats built within the grounds were allowed primarily as a means of enabling this restoration to take place. Were the conditions to be removed, this would result in the completion of almost all of the ‘enabling’ development without it having made any contribution towards the restoration of the listed building, and it would leave insufficient value in the few remaining undeveloped parts of the site to cover the costs of restoration.

“In practice, this would amount to accepting that the listed building need not be restored and would very probably result in its continued dereliction and eventual demolition. It would also be premature, in the absence of an application for listed building consent.

It is therefore recommended that the conditions preventing completion of the final 11 houses and 12 flats should be retained.”