WHEN the Glasgow School of Art was destroyed by its second massive blaze in four years, Adrian Nairn heard a bang on the door. The emergency services told him and his elderly mother to pack up quick, for their Dalhousie Street flat was in the middle of the danger zone.

Now, six weeks after the inferno, the self-employed harp maker has yet to regain access to his home for even a few minutes. Last weekend he made headlines across the Scottish papers when he was — once again — threatened with arrest for attempting to push down a barricade.

When I caught up with Nairn yesterday, he argued that it was the police — and not him — on dubious legal ground. “We’re actually disputing the legality of the cordon,” he said.

“We’ve got the council behaving disgracefully. It isn’t a criminal offence to cross a cordon.”

Nairn doesn’t believe the £20,000 payment to businesses affected by the fire — and the earlier blaze further down Sauchiehall Street at the Victoria nightclub — will keep them “going for long.”

Nor will the £3,000 per household payment to residents, he argues.

“How can you be threatening displaced residents with arrest for exercising their legal right to enter their homes?”

How indeed. I wrote in this column some weeks back about the importance of preserving the Mack for the future of the city and turning a page on Glasgow’s troubling reputation for letting its greatest assets decay.

We can’t forget the city’s greatest asset of all — its people.