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

Dig for Victory

"To stop food shortages in the Second World War the government encouraged British people to grow their own food and to turn all spare land into allotments. Gardens, flowerbeds and public parks: any available space was used.

"The Meadows, the Edinburgh Meadows was all converted into allotments… you had an area and it was allocated to you and you could grow certain vegetables on it..."
Click on a link to hear the extract: Broadband version --- Dialup version

Friends of The Meadows Association 21st Century

"There were 520 plots on the Meadows, but there were many other areas around Edinburgh that were used as emergency allotments during the war. These included Balgreen Park, Bruntsfield Links, Victoria Park, Joppa Quarry, Meadowbank, Craiglockart, Craigentinny Golf Course, Inverleith Park and many more. "
see more at Edinburgh Living Memory

The Good Life could be coming to the Canongate

people are continuing to write to the Republic and the press with ideas of what could happen with the empty site....come along to the SOOT "NO FOOLS" public meeting tomorrow and share yours on the 1st April 2009 at 7pm in Old Saint Pauls Church Hall, Jeffrey St. Finding Old Saint Pauls

Blank canvas

Scotsman Letters 31st March 09

WHAT to do with the Caltongate site? How about some grass seed? We don't need any more hotels, we don't need any more empty office space and we definitely don't need another shopping mall.

George Kerevan (Opinion, 26 March) wrote about Spanish architecture. In every major Spanish city, there are bustling sports centres where kids of all ages play in little local leagues into the night and under floodlights. People from the neighbourhood come along and watch, making for a real social, almost family occasion.

Our town council has talked many times about Edinburgh becoming a Milan or a Barcelona in the north, so do what these cities do – provide civic space. Why not be creative with Caltongate? Landscape it. Put in half-a-dozen five-a-side pitches, tennis courts, swings. It could be a Festival venue, a focal point for the Old Town. We could even put up with another coffee shop. Why have a big black hole in our city when we could have a dear green place?BARRY GARDNER Ferry Road Edinburgh

Oh you with the inflated ego

The following poem is dedicated to many involved in Caltongate and generally in the recent age of greed that is coming to a sticky end. But then every empire has its rise and fall...surely we can learn from our mistakes and starting living in the age of need not greed.

This poem will sadly most probably go over the heads of those who it so aptly applies.

Oh You With The Inflated Ego

Oh you with the inflated ego you feel that you are a true great

An aura of great self importance about yourself you try to create

Your head it seems to keep expanding with conceit you do seem overfull

You do like the sound of your own voice though you do talk a whole lot of bull

You have won for yourself a few admirers though you cannot count me as a fan

There's little that grate on my nerves more than the voice of a loudmouthed man

Oh you with the inflated ego about you it cannot be said

That you are lacking in self confidence or your ego needs to be fed

Your ego tells you how great you are though our egos to us often lie

And your three most important people will always be me, myself and i

You like to boast to other people of your wonderful job and new car

But somehow you cannot convince me of how marvellous a fellow you are

You feel that you are extra special but then your type of person not rare

For the disease that's known as swollen ego is now to be found everywhere.

by Francis Duggan

There is another chance to see the drama NEW TOWN this Thursday, that was shown in February.

Thursday 2nd April, 21:00 on BBC Four
Synopsis
Drama set in Edinburgh's New Town area. Starry architects Purves and Pekkala are offered the chance to redesign a Georgian church, but when the head of Scottish Heritage falls from the church tower in a mysterious accident, it becomes a question of whether he fell or was pushed.

The drama Old Town is still unfolding here in Edinburgh, so come along to A special "NO FOOLS ADMITTED" SOOT meeting on the 1st April 2009 at 7pm in Old Saint Pauls Church Hall, Jeffrey St. Finding Old Saint Pauls

The Caltongate Crash

Collapse of inappropriate development
offers capital a chance to think again

In today`s Scotsman 26 March 2009

Every cloud has a silver lining and the demise of Mountgrange and abandonment of the "Caltongate" development (your report, 24 March) is the most positive outcome so far of the current economic crisis.

Those who opposed this project deserve the thanks of everyone who cares for Edinburgh. Had they not objected so vigorously this project would have advanced further, with listed buildings destroyed and a yawning gap site on the Canongate.

Your editorial (24 March) is wrong to suggest local residents made "impossible" demands. Their principal demand was that the city council respect its own and national policies on conservation and the preservation of listed buildings and the world heritage site.

In a throwback to the discredited policies of the 1960s, council and developer colluded to destroy part of a local community. It is a shameful event in Edinburgh's planning history that, with some honourable exceptions, councillors, MSPs, Historic Scotland and the Scottish Government displayed supine acquiescence and impotence in their dealings with this piece of developmental hubris.

Two things should happen now. The council must immediately re-let all the vacant flats which it still owns in the Canongate. It is completely unacceptable that desirable social housing is being deliberately kept vacant to suit a developer. Tenants should also be found for those commercial properties still owned by the council. (Caltongate developer Manish Chande pays the council rent to keep flats empty, read more)

The council must also declare its intention to produce a revised masterplan for this part of the Old town, using its own resources or employing a respected consultant. In "Caltongate" it has allowed itself to be led ignominiously by the developers. The pernicious practice of allowing developers to produce their own masterplan must not be repeated.

On the other side of the Canongate 20 years ago the city council and its partners produced a masterplan for the Holyrood Road site. That area, a literal stone's throw away, was developed as flats, hotels, offices and cultural attractions such as Dynamic Earth and the Scottish Poetry Library. Views may differ about individual buildings, but few will deny that a genuine mixed development took place on that site which respected the traditional pattern of wynds and closes and at the same time gave expression to innovative architecture.

That is the way forward for the New Street site. The council must take charge, pay heed to its own policies and listen to the local community. ROBERT CAIRNS Ratcliffe Terrace Edinburgh

Here is what they are saying -

The Canongate Project

Here is the report on the project in a pdf file. It was published in February 2009

Watch Canongate Project Film here

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

Come along and get involved, you do not have to live in the Old Town but you do have to care for it

Another letter that also appears in todays Scotsman newspaper-

What a driech front page photograph (24 March) – Edinburgh's centre blitzed by the battle of expansion versus conservation. Or could it look like the blank sheet of opportunity – a space which could be developed to learn new ways of creating more equal prosperity and buildings which enhance life and the landscape without overheating the economy and planet?

Suggestions of temporary landscaping could be the preliminary to more permanently pleasing solutions, if carried out as a well-run co-operative project involving paid workers and volunteers – individual citizens and already formed groups. This would create jobs and increase local spending in the short term, with occupation and livelihood motivating alongside learning. Social enterprise is the current label for the business model. JANE GRIFFITHS Middleby Street Edinburgh