Larry the Lamb lived in Toy Town but you would think our esteemed city fathers and mothers were aspiring to knock the unique stuffing out of Edinburgh to turn it into their sanitised version of Toy Town - a town where everything looks the same, with no character and looks like a new town of the 50s and 60s - housing in East Kilbride and Cumbernauld Shopping Centre.
The Evening News reports that the Waterfront in Leith, whose masterplan was approved in 2001 has gone from having a land value of £33 million to £14 million - quite a depreciation. We were told it was the great hope for Granton -and Leith, the reason we needed a tram in Edinburgh. The Waterfront development was the triumph of city planning - but their greed caught them out - too many one and two bedroom houses glutted the market and there is a great demand for family housing - they have have had to adapt to the market. Read about it here
For further information on JUMP - campaign about the Leith Development follow the link here
With Lehmann Brothers collapsing in the States - will there be any banks that will be able to lend money to these developments, never mind Caltongate. In a recession do we really need 5 star hotels, conference centres and more new build "luxury apartments" - Edinburgh knows what it needs - affordable family housing with an infrastructure to support it. The Canongate could be developed keeping it's World Heritage Status and injecting people and families into the residential part of the city centre. If the profits go from the Caltongate development - what arethe council's plans? To rent out the council housing that has laid empty being left to rack and ruin, open up the Canongate Venture, to develop the land where the bus station was to be affordable housing?
The credit crunch is turning into a recession - the worse seen in more than a generation. Some say that Caltongate is not going ahead as Mountgrange don't have the money - so if that is the case we want to know what the council plans for a fall back position?
