In this week’s edition:
Caledonian Brewery site plans;
‘Deep clean’ team moving on;
Home of the Year finalist put up for sale;
Pause expected to Portobello ‘20-minute neighbourhood’ plans';
Purpose-built student accommodation: heritage body issues call for ‘civic-led’ approach;
Housing needs to get closer to the heart of Scotland’s economic strategising, argues think tank report;
Several traffic restriction trials being made permanent;
Community council raises complaint about Calton Hill house planning approval;
Granton Waterfront gets a mention in Scottish Futures Trust 2025-2030 plan;
Bike share scheme to return?
Roseburn Path - protest signs removed;
Pavement cafe hours;
Built environment talk and architecture at RSA annual exhibition;
New eatery planned for Calton Hill;
A new chapter in store for Leith’s Custom House; and
Enjoy…
PLANS to develop the now vacant site of the Caledonian Brewery, on Slateford Road, have been recommended by the city’s planners for approval.
But the final decision (notwithstanding the option of an appeal to the Scottish Government by the developer) will rest with councillors, “as the number of material objections received exceeds the threshold permitted for a delegated [to planners] decision” (as noted, here).
The developers are Artisan Real Estate and the plan is 168 homes which will mean demolition, including a distinctive malting and malt mill block that includes a clock.
Artisan announced its purchase of the site on December 31 two years ago - here.
The architects are Sheppard Robson.
There were 164 comments on the council’s planning applications portal (here) - ref 24/02048/FUL.
The city council’s Development Management sub-committee will be considering the application on Wednesday (here).
Says a report (here): “The proposal includes selective demolition of ex-industrial buildings and retention of original buildings. The site is to be redeveloped for residential use with the addition of new residential blocks, conversion of retained original buildings, and associated landscaping and access works.”
Concerning the malting and malt mill building, the report adds: “The new block will replicate the footprint and general scale of the original maltings building which was previously destroyed in the 1994 fire, and will include a basement level, and five storeys with a fifth storey set back, and a three-storey frontage on Slateford Road.
“The building materials will be a mix of red rustic brick, slate tile, and grey aluminium raised seam.
“Corner units will be dual aspect, with units in the middle of the block being single aspect. Windows are aluminium-clad with a mix of Juliet balconies on the north, south and west elevations. There are small external balconies serving five floors on the west elevation.”
-
A ‘DEEP clean’ team that has been working on Leith Walk since last month is now moving on to the neighbouring ward of ‘Leith’, to continue its work - part of a ‘Pride in our City’ project that is being funded, annually, by the city council to the tune of a million pounds.
After Leith this month - says the council, here - it’ll be the turn of Forth (next month), Inverleith (July) and the city centre (August).
Read more, here, on the council’s website.
-
AN Edinburgh flat that has reached the final of the BBC Scotland series, Scotland’s Home of the Year, has been put up for sale.
Wee City Nook is available for offers over £250,00 - here.
The flat took the honours in the East (of Scotland) episode - broadcast a week last Monday - and will compete against five other contenders in the series finale, which will hit our TV screens on the second of next month.
-
WORK to turn Portobello into a ‘20-minute neighbourhood’ - where most of life’s essentials are within a 20-minute cycle or walk away - look set to be paused.
It follows several recommendations (here) made by the city council’s interim ‘director of place’, Gareth Barwell, to the council’s Transport and Environment committee, which is meeting on Thursday to consider the costs of a ‘City Mobility Plan’.
But expected to get a reprieve are a ‘20-minute neighbourhood’ for Dalry and revamp plans for George Street, which include it becoming “a pedestrian and cycling zone (people-first) with the current parking removed (with the exception of ‘blue badge’ holders and loading bays)”.
While around 60 projects have been recommended for pausing, around 70 have been recommended to proceed.
Read Transport and Environment convener, Cllr Stephen Jenkinson, in the Edinburgh Evening News newspaper, here.
-
PURPOSE-built student accommodation has again come under the microscope of the Edinburgh heritage body, the Cockburn Association, which is calling for the return of “a civic-led approach that places the needs of communities, students, and heritage on equal footing”, rather than relying on “speculative delivery and developer-led policy formation”.
Concludes the Association: “It’s difficult to ignore the impression that some developers remain more attuned to shareholder returns than to the long-term well-being of Edinburgh’s built environment and the people who live in it. The language of regeneration is often used to justify demolition or overdevelopment, even when existing structures could be reused or sympathetically adapted.”
Read more, here.
-
STAYING with the Cockburn Association, its annual meeting is taking place on Tuesday.
And it’s being billed as its 150th AGM! - here.
-
HOUSING requires to be positioned more closely to the heart of Scotland’s economic strategising, according to the author of a wide-ranging report claiming that “inadequate housing supply, poor affordability and weak spatial planning are holding back productivity, increasing inequality and exacerbating regional disparities”.
Professor Duncan Maclennan, has produced a 21-page paper for the Edinburgh-based David Hume Institute think tank.
Says the Institute: “This first report from a new research series, ‘Prosperity begins at home: Scottish housing policies for faster, fairer economic growth’, argues that Scotland's housing system is underperforming and undermining the country’s economic potential.”
Maclennan is quoted, here, as saying: ““Scotland has for too long treated housing as a social issue disconnected from economic policy. But housing systems shape economic outcomes. If we are serious about reducing inequality and achieving sustained and sustainable growth, then we must place housing at the heart of our economic strategy.”
Read the report, here.
-
TRAFFIC restrictions being trialled on and around the High Street, Cockburn Street, West Bow and Waverley Bridge are to be made permanent.
It follows a meeting of the city council’s Traffic Regulation Orders sub-committee, held on Monday.
But a decision on making permanent similar restrictions on London Road, Duddingston Road, Duddingston Road West, King’s Place, Seafield Street, Seafield Road East, Hope Lane and Stanley Street was deferred - in part (reports The Edinburgh Reporter, here) “due to uncertainty over how quickly permanent infrastructure can be built”.
-
PLANNING permission awarded to a ‘contemporary’ five-bedroom house for a site at the bottom of Calton Hill - specifically 45 metres east of 12 Blenheim Place - is being disputed by the area’s local community council.
The New Town and Broughton Community Council says (here) it has raised a ‘formal’ complaint against the permission being granted by councillors, claiming various flaws during the decision-making process.
The application (ref 24/01889/FUL, here) - which planners recommended be refused (here) - was considered by councillors on the second of last month (here).
-
THE regeneration of Granton Waterfront gets a brief mention in the latest corporate plan of the Scottish Futures Trust which describes itself as ‘Scotland’s infrastructure centre of expertise’.
The plan - covering the period 2025-2030 - was unveiled on Monday, here, with Shona Robison, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, quoted as saying: “The 2025-26 Scottish Budget set out over £7 billion of capital spending that will contribute to reducing child poverty, grasp the opportunities of ‘net zero’, boost economic growth and maintain high-quality public services and infrastructure.”
As for Granton, it makes an appearance under the heading, ‘Our Impact’, on page 14 of the plan (which can be read in full, here).
The plan says: “Granton Waterfront is a 140-hectare brownfield ex-industrial coastal neighbourhood located in an economically-disadvantaged area of north Edinburgh.
“Over the next 10-15 years, the Granton Waterfront regeneration programme will create a new residential-led mixed-use community, home to around 8,000 people on Edinburgh’s waterfront. It will deliver around 3,500 ‘net zero carbon’ homes, a low-carbon heat network, a primary school, a health centre, commercial and cultural space and a new coastal park.
“SFT is supporting this place-led approach to ‘net zero’ regeneration and community building.”
-
A NEW bike sharing scheme in Edinburgh - involving potentially as many as 600-800 bikes - looks like it could be up and running within three months.
Reports Edinburgh Live (here): “A new bike hire scheme will be launched in the capital by August to replace a version that collapsed almost four years ago.
“Edinburgh Council is set to decide between two operators, Dott and Lime – and the scheme would cost the city nothing.”
It quotes the council’s Transport and Environment convener, Cllr Stephen Jenkinson, as saying: ““Neither of the companies were looking for any form of subsidy or any kind of finance to deliver the service.”
Read more, here: a paper going to the city council’s Transport and Environment committee, meeting on Thursday.
-
SIGNS calling for a cycle path to be saved from being turned into a tram track have reportedly been removed.
Writes Phyllis Stephen (here), editor of The Edinburgh Reporter, the signs were produced by local school children as part of a campaign to save Roseburn cycle path. They are said to have been unveiled last weekend.
She continues: “The Save the Roseburn Path group was formed in response to the council considering using part of the path for the proposed north-south tram route to Granton, but at this stage the matter has yet to be put out to consultation.
“The [city council’s] Transport Convener, Stephen Jenkinson, confirmed at the end of March that the consultation will begin on the two possible routes [via Roseburn Path and via Orchard Brae] in the middle of August.”
It is understood the consultation will last 12 weeks.
In an update (here) by The Edinburgh Reporter, before the removal of the signs, they seem to have been vandalised.
-
REPORTS the Edinburgh Inquirer: “Cafes will be allowed to serve customers outdoors from as early as 7.30am following a council rethink on ‘restrictive’ licensing rules.
“The operating hours laid down by the local authority currently limit licenses for pavement tables and chairs to 9am-9pm, with a possible extension to 10pm.”
-
TICKETS are on sale for a talk on the built environment, taking place at the Royal Scottish Academy, on Wednesday.
Says the RSA, here: “Join Robin Webster RSA and Ben Addy RSA, the Architecture selection committee for the 199th RSA Annual Exhibition, as they lead an engaging discussion on our built environment, both in its realised and theoretical forms.”
The annual exhibition (here) is open until the eighth of next month and among the exhibitors in a dedicated architecture section is 7N Architects (Seafield masterplan), Richard Murphy (remodelling west Princes Street and gardens, plus others), Collective Architecture (Linksview House and Cables Wynd House) and Bennetts Associates (Edinburgh Futures Institute).
-
A NEW eatery is reportedly set to take up residence in a dramatic restaurant space (here) at the top of Calton Hill.
Reports Daily Business (here), among many others: “Cafe Calton is the latest addition to Stefano Pieraccini’s Rocca Group restaurant portfolio, joining venues such as The Seafood Ristorante in St Andrews and The Broughton in Edinburgh’s New Town.”
A previous eatery, The Lookout, on the site closed in December.
-
EXHIBITION, meeting and studio space on Leith’s shore - in the Georgian Custom House - looks set to be turned into a ‘digital museum’ and a ‘21st century town square’.
It follows an agreement struck between the city council (which owns the building), Scottish Historic Buildings Trust (charged by the council to “lead its regeneration and restoration”) and the local civic trust, Leith Civic Trust.
Says SHBT, here: “Leith Civic Trust will be adopted by SHBT as the future operator of the groundbreaking museum at the heart of this innovative restoration project. This marks an exciting new chapter for Leith Civic Trust whose work for over two decades has championed the history and heritage of Leith.
“SHBT will support Leith Civic Trust in growing its membership and recruiting new trustees, who will receive in-depth training to manage the digital museum once the restoration is complete.”
Image details: Fountainbridge; copyright Mike Wilson (editor too of TheHousingDebate.Substack.com)