The Great Calton & Gate Swindle continues

Yes, The Development that incriminates it`s fans..., is back this season with a new song for them "dig, dig, dig, dig digging, dig an escape route for me"

The story so far

and today`s Evening News has a piece questioning the development???

They are in a hole so keep digging!

Caltongate Hokey Cokey

Well you just could not make it up, you just couldn't.  After saying just last week "we've got a buyer - honestly, we really have", it turns out the council are looking at renting out their work/office space at Canongate Venture and their empty flats in the Canongate!  It's Caltongate Christmas Hokey Cokey - the council are "in - out - shake it all about - you do the hokey cokey then you turn around, that's what it's all about -see!"

Check out tonight's story in the Evening News here


However questions still need to be asked, why then last month did council high heid yins tell Old Town residents that the tenement flats were not loosing any money because they were on a "void account"?

Mr Lowrie's nose will be getting bigger - the council still owns the majority of the land, the buildings and the homes, they do not belong to the administrators.  They hope that voiding them will make the Bank of Scotland's gap site more attractive to a developer, and that is what DeLoitte the administrator hope too i.e. look at all the viable land/buildings around the gap site, what a lovely opportunity.


The council should admit that they made a terrible mistake to be taken in my confidence tricksters against the community and conservationists who tried every trick in the book to tell them that Caltongate was a dystopia and a con.



With hundreds of thousands of pounds spent every month on putting homeless people in bed and breakfast accommodation - putting the flats back into use even as temporary accommodation will be welcomed. Though in the longer term the Republic would like to see secure tenures in the Macrae tenements.

Caltongate Panto to return for the next decade

Yes, hold the front page...Jim Lowrie rings The Scotsman and hey presto his makey uppy story appears as if by magic, with no word from the others that Brian Ferguson had to ring to make it appear there was some truth in the story...well it is panto time, remember this panto dame from December 2006, oh another chair of the "we love our property developer pals" planning committee at the comedy city chambers...

So back for another season is the old favourite THE COUNCIL`S NEW MASTERPLAN

Get your panstick back out Trevor..

Keep on Blogging in the Free World

The government recently rejected the Haymarket plans that went against the council's own planning policies.

Remember Jim Lowrie in action on the planning committee here on youtube

In the republic we hear that some say we shouldn't have a dig at those who have chosen to represent us in local or national government, well in a democracy that is what happens. They are not beyond reproach and will never be, otherwise we will be living in a ??

In the news yesterday was the story of a blogger causing a council to resign, this blogger here explains all and this is the blog here Muck&Brass

What drove someone to do this? A clear, transparent planning system?

Remembering the Haymarket Horror

some quotes below from a piece in the Scotsman today

Jim Lowrie is the current convener of planning at theCity of Edinburgh Council

"WE WERE very disappointed that the planning committee's decision on Haymarket was overturned, but I don't think we have anything to apologise for."

Malcolm Fraser's contribution to the failed Caltongate

Malcolm Fraser is the architect behind developments including the Scottish Storytelling Centre and Dance Base

"We have to find a way forward between the anodyne and the hubristic".

No quote from the hotel architect Richard Murphy though..but here is one from a piece he did for The Independent a few years ago about his home

"If I was to live anywhere else, I think it would definitely be another city like Barcelona, where they really appreciate architects and the resulting architecture is a joy and beauty to live with."

perhaps he has moved already?

Unesco meet Seville

The World Heritage Committee is currently meeting for its 33rd session in Seville, Spain from 22-30 June. During the session, the Committee will consider requests for the inscription of new sites on UNESCO's World Heritage List and examine the state of conservation of sites already inscribed on the List. The Committee is chaired by H. E. Mrs María Jesús San Segundo, Ambassador, Permanent Delegate of Spain to UNESCO.

The World Heritage Committee consists of representatives from 21 of the States Parties to the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, elected by the General Assembly of States Parties to the Convention.

Remember this headline from earlier this month....

Unesco insists Capital must scrap £300m Caltongate scheme

in The Scotsman from the piece -

"A £300 MILLION development in Edinburgh's historic Old Town has been thrown deeper into chaos after Unesco inspectors demanded council leaders have the whole scheme returned to the drawing board.

Councillors are set to face international condemnation at a world heritage summit in Seville next month after a damning report urged wholescale changes be made to the Caltongate scheme – even though it has received final approval from the Scottish Government."

" Leaked documents obtained by The Scotsman reveal that heritage inspectors are demanding a reprieve for two listed buildings threatened with demolition, the scrapping of a modern building which would have blocked views from Jeffrey Street, and a full review of how the development would impact on views from Calton Hill."

"The council is expected to face a major dilemma over the future of the site if Unesco's world heritage committee approves the report's recommendations, as expected. The local authority has had two other major developments called in for public inquiries within the past few months, as well as having to deal with a Unesco investigation triggered last summer."

Remember this after the Unesco delegation visit Unesco slam city on Caltongate

UNESCO yesterday criticised Edinburgh council's handling of the Caltongate development and said the demolition of two listed buildings could have been avoided, The Scotsman can reveal.

Its European heritage chief, Dr Mechtild Rössler, condemned the council for allowing the London developer Mountgrange to draw up the initial blueprint for the huge Old Town site, by Waverley Station."

"Jim Lowrie, Edinburgh city council's planning leader, admitted the local authority could be left in a "tricky position" if the council's handling of Mountgrange was strongly criticised and asked for a response."

"However, Mountgrange has launched an attack on Unesco, the world heritage body, branding it an "irrelevance" and saying it is not interested in its views on the £300 million development." (did he really say that?)

The firm said it has no intention of postponing the start of work until after next summer's World Heritage summit, in Seville, discusses Edinburgh.

A spokesman Mark Cummings of Never Beaten PR said a "dangerous precedent" would be set if a major developer had to wait until Unesco had delivered its judgment, and insisted that Mountgrange had no intention of changing its scheme, even if key criticisms were made by Unesco." Mountgrange in administration

They will be discussing Edinburgh either tomorrow or Thursday.

The Council`s New Masterplan continued

Capital News

Someone bought the following to the republic`s attention, which is an excellent summary on recent events in the capital. It is from Wilson`s Weekly Wrap which appears in Architecture Scotland.

"Thinking out of the box, or just out of the box?
Like buses, you can go a long time without seeing anything in the Scotsman that is even vaguely about architecture and then – lo – two features in one week. Well, not so much features as opinion pieces by a duo of well-known architects stationed on separate sides of the Caltongate divide. The first, by Malcolm Fraser, sought to articulate the protagonists’ position and whilst it made a bold case for seeing the proposed architecture as a continuation of Edinburgh’s strong urban traditions, it lapsed early on into a justification of the kind of statistics so well-loved by politician and, by default, developers – the supposed number of jobs created in construction and the predictions of total jobs established as a result of the finished development itself.

The trouble with this argument is that developers are not actually in the business of creating jobs but, more fundamentally, in the business of making themselves piles of dosh. If the development equation most profitable to them also responds to outdated political imperatives, all well and good, but this usually equates to those aspects of their projects they can pre-let to others who actually are in the business of front-line employment. No pre-lets, no development finance: precisely the problem that brought down Mountgrange, the developer for Caltongate – put simply, nobody else saw commercial benefit in their project just at the time when the company most needed them to.

The question is whether or not the scheme that proved so seductive to the City of Edinburgh Council and the Chamber of Commerce will, when the economy begins to recover, prove to be quite as enticing. In any case – and Malcolm surely understands this all too well – the number of jobs created is never contingent upon the quality of the architecture proposed and any project for this site could just as easily max out the figures to suit its case for political approval. Whether or not the scheme is – as Malcolm asserts – hugely better than previous proposals for the site will no doubt be the subject of ongoing debate given that these predecessors were simply (as it was for Caltongate before the crunch) the most financially beneficial for the developers of the day. None were perfect, none were based on any assessment of the actual civic needs of Edinburgh.

So to James Simpson, an architect who, by virtue of the long tenancy his practice previously had in an office just off the Canongate, knows the Old Town just as intimately as Malcolm. As a noted conservationist, James makes the case for a more Geddes-ian approach, albeit less specific since he is not fronting an alternative project. James is spot-on in one respect though – history does show that times of high economic pressure are often bad for historic cities, although whether or not the principles espoused by Patrick Geddes could provide an alternative funding scenario for the Caltongate site is not a question likely to be tested by the City of Edinburgh Council.

The prime movers of the anti-Caltongate cause, however, has been SOOT (Save Our Old Town), a loose agglomeration of local residents and others that, in the wake of Mountgrange’s demise, has boldly initiated the formation of a ‘Canongate Community Development Trust’ to consider and promote an alternative vision for the site. Nobody should doubt the intentions or the energies of this group – they have been far sharper in generating press and public support than the aforementioned Mountgrange, despite the latter’s considerable investment in marketing and public relations. But the real question for this large city centre site is one the Council long ago abrogated responsibility for: the need for a proper civic vision that transcends the development imperatives of specific interest groups whichever sector they happen to come from.



Realpolitik in Charlotte Square
Given the way the tectonic plates of local politics have been shifting of late, it was probably bound to happen, so the only surprise is that it’s taken so long for Edinburgh’s World Heritage Trust (EWHT) to be banned by its two principal funders from commenting on major developments in the city. Not wishing to be seen to be wielding the big stick themselves, the city’s Council and Historic Scotland appointed consultants who – shock, horror - came to the conclusion that the Trust was “too adversarial” and was responsible for “considerable tension” with the two partner bodies that until now have provided it with £1m plus of public money per year.

The City of Edinburgh Council has, as the Wrap has mentioned before, always found itself confused by the World Heritage Site status awarded to its Old and New Town areas as a result of an application to Unesco by Historic Scotland in 1995 and consequently has tried to accommodate it in the only terms it understands - tourism and commercial benefit. Giving the EWHT carte blanche to veto duff planning applications certainly wasn’t part of that agenda, and there can be little doubt that the Trust’s acerbic comments on the Council-approved Caltongate project was the straw that finally gave the municipal camel the hump.



Not that it admits as much – no, Jim Lowrie, the current chair of planning, insists the Council is simply trying to “streamline” the planning process in the capital. What streamlining means in this instance is a requirement that the Trust direct its energies towards the promotion of the World Heritage site to tourists, to work with schoolchildren and to develop projects to restore historic buildings and monuments. The latter has a particular piquancy, given that the Council and Historic Scotland have long since ceased to allocate the levels of funding to the Trust that facilitated useful grant aid to building owners. And just to confirm it’s got the message, an EWHT source is reported as saying that “we’ve been told to keep our heads down or face substantial funding cuts…it was very much a case of take it or leave it.”

In days gone by (and surely that’s the world most loved by the EWHT board?), political pressure of this sort would not be tolerated and from the chair down, mass resignation would be the order of the day rather than be seen as the patsies who succumbed to totalitarian stricture. Not so, it seems: as chair of a now revisionist EWHT, Charles McKean has simply commented to the effect that ”the recommendations made reflect a change of emphasis towards more targeted grant-giving (sic), project work in the public realm and interpretation of the World Heritage site. That may well be the case, Charles, but it does make the rest of us wonder what the last 14 years of street-by-street, building-by-building combat by the Trust have really all been about. "

SOOT meeting Tonight 7pm

"and you can bet your life that the architect lives in a nice little villa in the country"

Architect defends Canongate

Published Date: 01 April 2009The Scotsman By BRIAN FERGUSON

A LEADING architect whose firm was involved in the stricken £300 million Caltongate development in Edinburgh's Old Town has launched an outspoken attack on critics of the scheme.

Malcolm Fraser has criticised campaigners for celebrating the demise of developer Mountgrange Capital last week and pledged to confront them at a public meeting tonight.

Mr Fraser was behind one of the most controversial elements of Caltongate – a six-storey landmark blocking one of the best-known views of Calton Hill, from Jeffrey Street. He writes in today's Scotsman : "In a recession, with thousands losing their jobs and homes, the creation of up to 2,000 jobs and around 200 new homes is an odd sort of destruction, and its postponement an odd sort of victory."

He wrote as the council defended its handling of the development, after claims that planning delays caused its collapse last week when Mountgrange went into administration. The scheme was unveiled four years ago. Final plans were lodged in October 2007 and approved by February 2008.

Jim Lowrie, the capital's planning leader, yesterday insisted the city was right to have a "stringent" planning process, adding: "We are responsible for ensuring that the city's character is preserved for future generations."

A special April "NO FOOLS " SOOT meeting is tonight the 1st April 2009 at 7pm in Old Saint Pauls Church Hall, Jeffrey St. Finding Old Saint Pauls

You can read what Malcom Fraser is saying in a piece in todays Scotsman, whcih as from 11.20am you can now read online due to overwhelming demand

Below is Frasers contribution to the project - larger here

the building which would block the view would then only be seen by the people inside the building, who would be no other than architects!!

A poem by Shelley -

OZYMANDIAS

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away

The Great Calton & Gate Swindle

There is so much news today, go to google news and enter caltongate, you will see who Mountgrange`s administrators are and their plans to re-invent themselves, any ideas for their future company`s name welcome, and remember to send your caption for the pic of Manish Chande and his spin doctor Mark Cummings below....
BBC and Stv news tonight are covering story.

Caltongate the Movie

STARRING


"The Developers"

Martin "The Silent One" Myers

&

Manish "Its a 5 star hotel or nothing" Chande

Manish Chande, aged 51, graduated with a diploma in Accountancy from the City of London Polytechnic in 1975 and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales. In 1997, he co-established the Trillium Group and was chief executive prior to its acquisition by Land Securities plc in 2000. Mr. Chande joined the board of Land Securities, before resigning in 2002 to establish Mountgrange Capital plc. Mr. Chande continues to serve as chief executive of Mountgrange. From 1985 to 1997, Mr. Chande worked as chief executive officer at Imry plc, prior to which time he spent four years working at Deloitte Haskins & Sells (Chartered Accountants) London (presently PriceWaterhouseCoopers). Mr. Chande also served as non-executive chairman of National Car Parks plc from 2003 to 2005 and as a non-executive director of MITIE plc from 2003 to 2006 and Property Fund Management plc from 2002 to 2004. In 2003, Mr. Chande was appointed as a Commissioner of English Heritage.

http://www.londonstockexchange.com/LSECWS/IFSPages/MarketNewsPopup.aspx?id=1486080&source=RNS

"The Cooncil"

Jenny ""Its grotesque and hideous, lets approve it" Dawe present city leader

Jim "laugh a minute" Lowrie present planning convenor

Donald " How I made Edinburgh"" Anderson, former City Leader, now Director of Mountgrange`s PR firm PPS Group Scotland












Trevor " the finger " Davies, former planning convenor

"The Architects"

Allan "Caltongate or Edinburgh must die <>" Murray

Malcolm "heritage bodies are toxic " Fraser


co starrring

Spin Doctor
Mark "Never Beaten PR" Cummings

Ron "rent a gob" Hewitt, Head of Chamber of Commerce


Historic Scotland

Architecture Design Scotland

now they are doon the tubes.........

Unesco Slates Caltongate

The chickens are coming home to roost to the City Chambers, and it won`t be that long before we have our very own in the New Street gap site by the sound of things....

from todays article Unesco slates Caltongate scheme in The Scotsman -

full article here
"A DOSSIER into Edinburgh's World Heritage Site has strongly criticised the handling of a controversial development in the heart of the Old Town.
The Unesco report, delivered to the city council on Friday, has singled out for criticism the way the £300 million Caltongate scheme was approved by the authorities despite protests from a host of heritage groups."

"Jim Lowrie, the city council head of planning, said: "(The report] does criticise us over the Caltongate development. We are going to have to look at (that] before we respond in detail."

In The Sunday Herald Joanna Blythman wrote whilst celebrating it seems

Grand’ failure offers green light for green space "Rejoice! Caltongate, Edinburgh's grandiose £300 million development project, looks dead in the water because the company behind it, Mountgrange, has run out of dosh. The company has clocked up a loss of £24m and is so indebted that there is "a material uncertainty that casts doubts over the company's ability to continue as a going concern". As someone who lways thought the Caltongate project was a crock of ordure, I won't shed a tear if Mountgrange goes down the pan, taking its ill-conceived plan with it." full article here

Please note that the Canongate Community Forum AGM that was to take place tonight has been postponed.

The Great Calton & Gate Swindle

Caltongate The Movie

STARRING


"The Developers"

Manish "Its a 5 star hotel or nothing" Chande

&

Martin "The Silent One" Myers

"The Cooncil"

Jenny ""Its grotesque and hideous, lets approve it" Dawe present city leader

Jim "laugh a minute" Lowrie present planning convenor

Donald " How I made Edinburgh"" Anderson, former City Leader, now Director of Mountgrange`s PR firm PPS Group Scotland












Trevor " the finger " Davies, former planning convenor

"The Architects"

Allan "Caltongate or Edinburgh must die " Murray

Malcolm "heritage bodies are toxic " Fraser


co starrring

Spin Doctor
Mark "Never Beaten PR" Cummings

Ron "rent a gob" Hewitt, Head of Chamber of Commerce


Historic Scotland

Architecture Design Scotland

to be continued.................

Quality of capital`s new buildings slammed

This article appeared in last Wednesday`s Scotsman 21st January page 16 by Brian Ferguson and has the title -

Quality of capital`s new buildings slammed and was a Scotsman Exclusive, it strangely has not appeared online, although this short version appeared in their sister paper The Evening News later that day.

"Scotland`s capital is being saddled with sub-standard develpments and poorly-designed new landmarks, a leading architectural body has claimed.

The Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland (AHSS)warned that inferior schemes were being appoved by Edinburgh council in the rush to secure economic investment.

The society said a vacuum in the planning system means no-one was able to exert influence to ensure high-quality designs.

The AHSS accused the city`s design leader Sir Terry Farrell of remaining "mute" while controversy has raged over major developments such as Haymarket and Caltongate, which triggered a Unesco investigation into the city`s world heritage status.

It also questioned the influence and role of Architecture Design Scotland(A&DS), the government-funded "national champion for good architecture, design and planning"

Concerns have been mounting among heritage groups in the capital over the quality of recent designs for major developments, including the scheme earmarked for the Cowgate fire site, a new hotel development on Princes Street, the 17-storey Haymarket complex and Caltongate, which will see more than 200 new homes, a five-star hotel, and conference centre built on The Royal Mile.

Euan Leitch, spokesman for the AHSS`s Forth and Borders cases panel said: "There is a perception in Edinburgh that the need for economic developent over-rides the desire for good design and that the planning department must accept proposals already agreed by the economic development team.

Better design need not have been more expensive. Too often we accept inferior architecture hidden behind a thin veneer of sandstone"

Jim Lowrie, convener of planning at the city council, acknowledged improvements were needed in the way major developments were handled , but insisted action was already taking place.

Sebastion Tombs, chief exectutive of A&DS, said "We get involved with major developments at an early stage, but we always agree that our comments during those discussions remain private. Having design competitions could improve things, but they would need developers to agree to co-operate

This is from Conservative Cllr Cameron Rose`sBlog who is on the Planning Committee

"The Cowgate site which was cleared after the much publicised fire five years ago has now received planning permission for a replacement development. The full planning committee supported the proposals earlier this week and this article gives more details including a brief quote from me. 'Angular and boxish. . . ' may not be a description which slips off the tongue - but it describes the outline of part of the proposal. I welcome many modern forms of architecture but what seems to be a growing tendency to celebrate square and rectangular shapes just does not look right - especially in an historic context. Some of the Waterfront buildings which have been built in recent years exibit a penchant for geometric designs which jar with the senses. In the case of the Cowgate, the proposals were passed as a whole but certain matters were reserved for further consideration..."


So all those boxy and angular historic buildings in the city by people like Adam etc... we just ignore? (Charlotte Square, anyone?) So does that mean we need wild organic shapes to fit into the historic context? Oh my god........This former policeman hasn't a clue!

Inside the minds of Edinburgh`s Plannning Committee

In todays Evening News, they reckon that the planning committee will pass yet another Allan Murray scheme, no surprises there then???? So lets all start to go loco down in SOCO...

The Edinburgh Association of Community Councils Question Time was held in the Business Centre of the City Chambers on Saturday December 6th 2008 from 10am to 12 noon. The topic under discussion was Planning and Economic Development

In attendance for the panel were: Planning Committee Convener -Cllr. Jim Lowrie (SLD - Fountainbridge/Craiglockhart --Cllr. Joanna Mowat (Conservative - City Centre),
Cllr. Steve Burgess (Green Party - Southside/Newington) Cllr Norma Hart (Labour Liberton/Gilmerton.

The main points of the discussion were: How the Planning and Development Committee works

Here are some of the days choice pieces -

"Cllr Lowrie noted in his opening remarks that he had been a councillor for 10 years, and acknowledged that the other councilors had been council members for just 18 months."

" All acknowledged that the workload for the Planning Committee was ‘very heavy', the training was continuous and frequent, and the newer councillors described their brief as the ‘steepest learning curve' they had ever experienced. "

"Councillor Hart noted that she had been surprised to learn just how ‘constrained' the Planning Committee was by legislation."

" Cllr Lowrie further noted that despite a current popular belief that the Committee is now influenced by decisions politically, this is not the case. Councillors from one party will often express different views and vote in opposition to each other over proposed developments.

Cllr Lowrie emphasized that the Committee does not have the powers to ‘really stop developments' if they are within the national and local policies and plans. "

and on the The Caltongate Development specifically-

Cllr Hart: The Labour Group voted for Caltongate. This was not a decision taken lightly. The application was scrutinized and qualified. There was a balance needed between interests and potential benefits. In general it seems possible to strike a balance. There is a significant degree of local discontent, yet there will be a new amenity, an important green site and cycle routes.

Cllr Mowat: We will be proud of the new development. It is not the abomination that some people describe. It will create safer routes from the station through to the Parliament buildings, some of which can at present be dangerous and threatening after 4.30 in winter. Those promoting the Heritage argument asked why we would allow this proposal to go through. We felt it would add to the area. The impossible ‘fish-bone' patterns of medieval times that were proposed by those supporting the Heritage views would not have been good for the site. The plan is now above the standard of plans usually seen.

Cllr Lowrie: We were successful in significantly changing the original concept. The original application passed in 2002 wasn't exciting and didn't generate a sense of place. Now a big square is part of the plan, with cafes and walkways. The route to Parliament will be vital and lively. There will be one big arch, but generally the frontage won't vary from that along the rest of the Royal Mile. " Read and weep at full minutes here

Wow what insight they all have, I for one am so proud that those people are on the capital`s planning committee, I will sleep well knowing this....................................where is my medication?