Glasgow’s foremost arts and culture venue, the Centre for Contemporary Arts, faces a “permanent hollowing out” as it enters its fourth month of enforced closure caused by the Glasgow School of Art fire.

Its director, Francis McKee, believes the CCA has been brought to the brink by a fundamental failure on the part of Glasgow city council to understand the nature and scale of the organisation that is considered a key driver in the city’s cultural renaissance over the past three decades.

While describing a new provisional re-entry date of 15 October as “more hopeful”, McKee told the Guardian: “Nobody seemed to understand what the CCA was for, the scale of the organisation and what long-term closure would mean. There’s been a complete lack of understanding of the scale of what we do, and then we’re not at the table when decisions are made about our future. So the help we were offered was not the help we needed. That is a real frustration.”

Representatives of the CCA will meet on Friday to discuss a recovery plan for the Sauchiehall Street area. Other businesses are still affected by the security cordon imposed by the council’s building control as the painstaking work to stabilise the remaining structure of the devastated Mackintosh building continues.

The CCA was told on Thursday afternoon that the art school was working to a revised completion date of 14 October, a month later than the CCA had previously anticipated, but that this was “potentially subject to change and is dependent on both weather and the technical progress being made by the GSA contractors”.

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There has been further criticism by other residents and businesses still excluded from their homes and businesses of “shambolic” crisis management. Some tenants returned to their homes only to wait for days for their gas supply to be reinstalled.

With more than 300 events and exhibitions at the CCA cancelled since the fire on 16 June, the 18 businesses and organisations that reside within the multi-purpose arts centre, which has offered a unique cultural hub for the city since it opened in 1992, remain in limbo. The CCA cafe fears that, having exhausted its insurance policy, it will have to sack its 32 staff, effectively shutting down one of the city centre’s most popular meeting points.

“There is a genuine fear that the CCA will be permanently hollowed out,” said McKee. The centre works with 366 partners, including the Glasgow film festival and Celtic Connections, which have now had to find different venues during the autumn, the CCA’s busiest programming season. “Some of the festivals and events may not come back. We’re not going to get back in and everything can go back to normal. We’ll have to rebuild every aspect of it.”

The GSA insists its contractors are working “flat out”, but it underlined that all progress must be inspected and signed off by the council’s building control officials. After Tuesday’s meeting, it committed to allowing “as a matter of urgency” access to the building to fix a water leak that has caused a ceiling in the gallery space to collapse. But organisations including the Paragon Ensemble and the Playwrights’ Studio are still unable to access vital documents and computers.

GSA fire GSA fire

Businesses around the fire site have now returned to their premises after the cordon was reduced last month. But “this is so far from over”, said Gill Hutchison, owner of Biggars music, which has traded in the area now within the cordon for a century.

Speaking on behalf of Sauchiehall Street inner cordon businesses, Hutchison explained: “The scenes we’ve been left to trade amongst are pretty disastrous. Now there are problems with crime in the area, including a recent stabbing, assaults and break-ins. Some residents and businesses have now left permanently. People are reporting up to 80% fall in takings and footfall is dreadful. There is a chasm as far as a future economic regeneration plan. I’m disappointed that we haven’t seen more pro-activity from the government or the council.”

Pauline McNeill, the Labour MSP for Glasgow region who has coordinated the planning meeting on Friday, said there had been a “complete breakdown of trust with the council and building control”.

McNeill told the Guardian that businesses would discuss whether to call for a public inquiry into the handling of the aftermath of the fire. “I would be saying that there needs to be a close examination of what’s gone wrong here for the future.

These people feel abandoned and had to fight every step of the way for various levels of support.”

A spokesman for the city council said: “Where we have been able to reduce the cordon, we consulted directly with businesses and residents on how the reoccupation of their property could be managed – where the council or other agencies could provide support, and, equally, where people did not want us to be involved.

“The businesses that are still displaced were not involved in that process because, quite rightly, these were private matters for those affected. We have, on a number of occasions, committed to carry out the same process ahead of reoccupation at the west of the site, but we simply do not have a confirmed date at this stage.

“That notwithstanding, we have also met with the CCA to discuss specific issues. Local businesses and business associations are represented on a Sauchiehall Street taskforce, which will address the medium- and longer-term regeneration of the community.”