BUCHANAN Galleries will try to buy Glasgow's new tourist information office, it was claimed today.

The giant mall has set its sights on the Visit Scotland centre, which opened just six months ago.

Tomorrow Glasgow's most senior councillors will be asked to back compulsory purchase orders or CPOs "in principle" for the entire area, including the tourist office.

However, officials insist that members will be required to approve any individual bid to force anyone to sell up land and buildings blocking the mall expansion.

And they dismissed talk of any specific CPO – including the Visit Scotland building in Buchanan Street – merely as "speculation".

However, sources insist a potential target for CPOs is the council's own sister organisation, regional transport agency Strathclyde Partnership for Transport, which owns the Visit Scotland office and parts of nearby Dundas Street.

An insider said: "SPT is in the way of the Buchanan Quarter project and may be forced to sell up if it doesn't do a deal with the Galleries."

SPT, which owns offices and land in the area, formally objected to plans to expand the mall, citing traffic problems.

Until last week SPT was chaired by George Redmond, a Glasgow Labour councillor.

However, he was sacked by city leader Gordon Matheson for "disloyality" and replaced by Baillieston Councillor Jim Coleman.

Glasgow City Council has refused to discuss potential subjects of compulsory purchase orders.

Green counciloors Nina Baker – an opponent of the mall's expansion – said she felt she was being asked, "to vote for a pig in a poke".

SNP group leader on the council, Graeme Hendry is worried the blanket CPO approval will give Buchanan Galleries an advantage in bargaining with land owners.

He said: "While I can appreciate the benefit of having CPO powers approved in principle we must ensure that any actual use of the power is exercised by the council with full committee approval.

"In addition, approval should not be seen as a tool to simply strengthen the negotiating hand of Buchanan Partnership."

Other land in the way of the development is occupied by shops in Dundas Street.

A council spokesman said: "This is a request in principle for the council to use statutory CPO powers, should they be required.

"If they are ultimately required, a further report would come to the Executive Committee but any suggestion at this stage that a specific property might be the subject of a CPO is nothing more than speculation."

Buchanan Galleries –owned by the Buchanan Partnership, a joint venture of Land Securities and Jersey-based investors Henderson – made no comment.

The city council has already pledged to support what it calls "Buchanan Quarter regeneration" with hard cash under a controversial Tax Incremental Finance scheme or TIF.

A spokeswoman for SPT, meanwhile, confirmed the agency had leased the tourist info office to Visit Scotland for five years -with more than four still to go.

She said: "We are aware of the outline plans to expand Buchanan Galleries but SPT has not yet been given formal notification of a CPO so it would be inappropriate to comment further."

david.leask@eveningtimes.co.uk