The council has served a dangerous buildings notice at Inshes Retail Park in Inverness after a glass panel fell from a shop front canopy.
It happened less than two months after a man was injured by falling glass at the city’s Inverness Centre retail park. The shopping area was closed for several days to allow safety checks to be carried out.
The latest incident happened just outside Deichmann Shoes at Inshes Retail Park, owned by Aberdeen Standard Investments. All shops with glass canopies – from Matalan to Hobbycraft – were cordoned off yesterday with police tape and will be closed until further notice.
A Highland Council spokeswoman confirmed that no one was hurt during the incident and said that environmental health and building standards officers were on site to investigate yesterday.
She added: “There is no evidence as to what has caused the panel to fail and building standards therefore intend to serve a dangerous buildings notice prohibiting access to these units until the panels are removed or proved to be safe.”
An Aberdeen Standard Investment spokesman said: “We have a team who are working with the police, the building standards office and the affected retailers to investigate the cause of the incident, to ensure public safety and to re-open stores as soon as possible.”
The day-to-day management and maintenance of the building is the responsibility of Edinburgh-based firms Corran Properties and Property and Asset Management, neither of which were available for comment yesterday.
Inverness South councillor Ken Gowans said: “Public safety is paramount and we don’t know what the reason is for this and until this is ascertained, it’s important to take prudent steps to ensure public safety. This is a very busy time of year for people looking for the sales.
“It seems quite odd that two canopies have smashed in a number of months.”
Yesterday, hundreds of glass shards could be seen scattered across the pavement outside the Deichman Shoes store.
Building Standards officers were seen carrying out their investigations in the early afternoon.
A police spokesman said they received a call from a member of the public about the glass at 7.12am yesterday morning.