Terry? Terry who?

Above is our favourite Terry here in the republic and a song from him with a great video..
that could be played to accompany the other Terry`s departing speech today in Edinburgh where he seemingly was the citys design champion for the past 5 years?

What the other Terry said at the beginning of his post here in Edinburgh in 2004 in The Telegraph


"How can a city be densely built without repeating the mistakes of post-war planning? How can the city be made socially inclusive?
How can it be made friendly to both walkers and car-users?
And how can Edinburgh's new waterfront development be integrated with the city as a whole?"

Now heres what he`s saying 5 years later in The Times from yesterday

“a lack of vision is ruining the city” and that its £512 million tram project highlights the failures of its moribund planning system."

On the eve of a conference of politicians, architects and planning professionals, Sir Terry said that Edinburgh's wonderful legacy was being undermined by a dangerous complacency among civic leaders whose lack of “bigger thinking” is allowing even its most famous street, Princes Street, to sink into “a shambles”.

and today as he leaves the city The Scotsman

"While reluctant to be drawn into the controversy surrounding the £300 million Caltongate project, which intended building shops, offices and a hotel in the Canongate in the Royal Mile, Sir Terry has outlined his vision for many other parts of the city.

These include plans for redeveloping a stretch just less than seven miles long in the Leith docks and Newhaven area, which he dubs "Waterfront City" and which he says would be on a par with the creation of the New Town."

Waterfront value plummets

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?