Get yourself along to The Canon`s Gait Cellar Bar tonight from 8pm til 1am. Map
Acts so far include ,Missing Cat , David McGinty
Andrew Gordon and Sabai
From Yesterdays Eve News
Caltongate
'a threat to world heritage status'
AN architectural historian who has demanded a European investigation into the £300 million Caltongate scheme has warned that losing the city's world heritage status is a "very real prospect". David Black has contacted the European Commission with allegations that the city council broke competition laws over the sale of land for the massive project. Mr Black has raised a number of concerns over the council's handling of the scheme.
As a result, campaigners have vowed to lobby Unesco's heritage arm in a bid to place the Capital on an "endangered" list. The international council on monuments and sites has also said it is "appropriate" for Unesco to examine the scheme. But developer Mountgrange has insisted there is no justification for an investigation, and has called the threat of losing status a "wild suggestion".
There is a poll on the article`s page to the right hand side which you can vote on which asks you -
Are you pleased that councillors have approved the Caltongate scheme?
Yes, Edinburgh has to change to survive and thrive
Yes, as long as the Royal Mile tenements are preserved
No, it’s architectural vandalism on a grand scale
There was bad news for the Save Meadowbank Campaigners as MEADOWBANK Stadium is to be demolished and a third of the site sold off to pay for a new £25 million centre following a vote by city councillors. The decision was reached last night, despite protests from campaigners battling to save the site. Read more Eve News
Someone has left the following comment on the Caltongate article
"Caltongate, the Waterfront, leisure facilities, wanton disregard for Common Good land and assets, parks and open spaces. Why dont all the groups get together and have a "Reclaim our City for the Citizens" movement? I'd join."
They have a point, what is the future for those who live in the capital all year round? Are we to go and be replaced by hotels, conference centres, office blocks and become a city who forgot its most important asset, her people?
The following letter in todays Eve News adds to this
YOUR article on figures released by the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (Holyrood's £100,000 window cleaning bill, News, March 11) reveals the amount spent each year cleaning the windows of The Scottish Parliament.
It is obscene that this can happen in a city where the council has recently downgraded pensioners' meal provision from fresh food, to microwaved instant garbage, in order to save money.
If the building is still here in the year 6608 we will have spent what the building originally cost in just cleaning its damned windows! Not that the Scottish Parliament building will be here in 6608 . . . nor 2033 probably. Like anything else put up in Edinburgh these days it will be lucky to last 30 years before we pull it down before it falls down.
If the MSPs had been content with the debating chamber, offices and splendour of the Royal High, and the nearby working accommodation of old St Andrews House, the fabric of the buildings would outlast the institution of Parliament using them.
We desperately need architects and developers with the bravery to build for a long future, not Caltongate carpetbaggers who take the money and run. Mind you, as soon as the powers-that-be realise that the Parliament, Caltongate and the new council HQ, will be tottering wrecks when the old council building on the High Street will still have 200 years left in it, they'll probably knock that down too.
What is it about longevity in a building that offends the planner, architect and developer so?
