A decision about whether to rebuild a series of historic Dartmouth landmarks is due to be made today (Thursday May 4).

The nine early 19th Century chimney stacks on top of the town’s Old Market have been demolished after a structural assessment report discovered they were unstable due to poorly constructed supporting walls, largely rebuilt in the 1970s.

Dartmouth Town Council commissioned the report following the collapse of the support wall on Charles Street, which also resulted in the demolition of one of the chimney’s to prevent a “catastrophic” unplanned collapse of the two-tonne stack.

The wall collapsed during a £60,000 refurbishment to the render and lime wash of the external walls. It cost an extra £13,000 to demolish all nine of the historic chimneys.

Deputy town clerk Rich Crowley said: “We are meeting with the South Hams Council heritage officer on Thursday May 4 to talk about all of the options. This will be updated when a view is taken, and made public.”

In his report Neil Baglow of Lee Ross Associates said the support walls are “poorly constructed,” and the “stability” of the chimneys “appears to have been compromised.”

He wrote: “This report has been commissioned following the collapse of the random rubble wall supporting a brick chimney 2 at the Pannier Market, Dartmouth.

“The unsupported chimney 2 stack has subsequently been demolished to remove a potential catastrophic failure. The removed stack at approximately 2.786m high, could have had a potential unsupported weight of 2.16 tonnes (21.63kN) if it had collapsed en-masse.

“We are advised that the existing wall, which was undergoing masonry render repairs, failed without warning.”

Concluding, Mr Baglow said there is evidence the stacks’ structural design and the construction of the supporting random rubble walls, is suspect.

“Given previous internal works to remove the chimney breast supporting the stack, the stability of these structures appears to have been compromised.

“We do recommend that consideration be given to the total removal of all these two tonne chimney stacks, given the nazard and risks to public safety that the stacks now present.

“In view of the catastrophic mode of failure of the wall, there is knowledge of the inherent hazards that the support walls and the chimney stacks now pose.