UNESCO In Edinburgh

Catch up with todays national and local coverage -Radio Scotland coverage begins at 1 hour 55 mins

It was covered on BBC One`s Breakfast a live broadcast with Sally Richardson of Save Our Old Town campaign and Architect Neil Baxter

Then on the UK wide One O`clock News BBC TV UK News then on Reporting Scotland no link yet

Unesco reviews Edinburgh's status

Two Unesco inspectors are arriving in Edinburgh to consider the city's World Heritage status.
The UN's cultural body is considering withdrawing the title, which it awarded in 1995, after the council passed some controversial planning applications.
Unesco is concerned about major new builds, including the Caltongate in the old town and the redevelopment of the St James shopping centre.

The representatives will spend three days touring the developments.
Unesco advisor Professor Manfred Wehdorn arrived on Wednesday morning at Edinburgh Castle for his first meeting.

Dr Mechtild Rossler, Unesco head of Europe and North America, is due to arrive in the city later on Wednesday.

Neil Baxter, secretary of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS), told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme that he was concerned with Unesco's potential power over Scotland's planning process.

City's story

He said: "The idea of Unesco coming to visit and perhaps issue edicts is very worrying in terms of the planning process and due governance of Scotland by Scottish people.
"The planning system comes from government through to the local authorities and the controls are there.
"We shouldn't be stymieing development. If we'd done that in the past we wouldn't have all the good stuff Unesco wants to protect."

Sally Richardson, of the Save Our Old Town Campaign, said when the city had applied for World Heritage status 13 years ago it had signed up to Unesco's criteria for protecting and enhancing.
"We welcome Unesco's visit - they're coming here to offer international experience," she said.
"We're not fighting against development; we're fighting for the right development.
"My children and the children of the Royal Mile Primary School will see buildings on their street demolished to make way for retail-led development that's not going to add to the story of their city."

Delegates are to meet at Seville's 2009 Unesco summit in the summer to discuss the findings.

Edinburgh City Council leader Jenny Dawe said: "I am extremely proud of Edinburgh's World Heritage status and our beautiful architecture, which attracts people to live,
visit, study and invest in Edinburgh.

"We are also a living city that is continuously evolving with all new developments scrutinised and receiving fair appraisal.
"I believe that heritage and development both contribute to the fantastic quality of life that Edinburgh offers."

The Old and New Towns of Edinburgh were awarded world heritage status because of the unique contrast and quality of architecture between the medieval Old Town and the Georgian New Town.

Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7723840.stm
Published: 2008/11/12 10:30:32 GMT© BBC MMVIII

Quotes on World Heritage Status

Above First Minister Alex Salmond & Minister Linda Fabiani

Who Has Said What -

The First Minister said: “From the Firth of Forth to the Clyde, the Antonine Wall marks the point where the tide turned for the Roman Empire in Scotland. Built by Hadrian’s successor, Emperor Antoninus Pius, it is the furthest frontier and a testament to design and ambition – attributes that echo throughout Scottish history.

“With this wall added to Scotland’s collection of internationally recognised historic sites, Scotland can be hugely proud that so much of our heritage is recognised not only for its impact on our own evolution and identity but for its contribution to the World.

“Next year, with the Scotland’s Year of Homecoming, we have an opportunity to celebrate that contribution. The opening of the Antonine Wall Centre at the Hunterian Museum in 2009 will be a great addition to the cultural experience on offer and I hope that the newly achieved status of our great wall might even inspire returning friends and family to walk the Antonine Way!” Historic Scotland


Commenting on World Heritage Day in 2008, Linda Fabiani the Scottish Minister for Europe, External Affairs and Culture stated: "We can... take the opportunity to reflect upon the contribution of our own World Heritage sites and their place in the global story of humanity. We can celebrate, with justified pride, Scotland's contribution".[2] More Here

The leader of the City of Edinburgh Council Jenny Dawe said: “Edinburgh has a rich architectural heritage and is proud of its city centre UNESCO World Heritage Site status. We do not want to see that status compromised”.

She went on to quote Renzo Piano, the Italian architect who designed the Pompidou Centre in Paris. Talking about designing new architecture in historic environments he said:
“When you work in a historical city centre, instead of worrying about the lack of freedom you should be grateful for the restrictions. Creativity doesn’t need freedom, it needs rules.”

World Heritage Day 2008

Why invest in Edinburgh?

Reputation

Edinburgh is Scotland's capital city,
home of the Scottish Parliament
and the consulate core.
Edinburgh is the world's festival city,
a World Heritage Site,
the world's first UNESCO City of Literature,
a leading international financial centre,
a recognised 'Ideopolis' of knowledge
and is renowned worldwide for innovation and cultural excellence
Inspiring Capital.com

What is A World Heritage Site?

Well, someone has been doing their homework!

The Big Question:

What is a World Heritage Site, and does the accolade make a difference?
By Paul Vallely The Independent Friday, 7 November 2008

Why are we asking this now?

A United Nations team is about to visit Bath to decide whether the city still deserves the accolade of a World Heritage Site. There are 28 such sites in Britain but Bath is the only entire city to be listed.

But the heritage police are worried. They originally called Bath "a city that is harmonious and logical, in concord with its natural environment and extremely beautiful". But now they fear this might be spoiled by a new development to which the city council's planning committee has given outline permission. It will add 2,200 houses with shops, a school and a park right next to the River Avon. Some of the buildings are nine storeys high.

Enthusiasts for the scheme attack those who would keep Bath as "a city in aspic" and worry that the whole project may be at risk if the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), which grants world heritage status, disapproves.

What kind of places are given the accolade?

Anything from a city to an individual building, monument, area, forest, mountain, desert or lake. There are currently 878 world heritage sites which include 678 listed for cultural reasons and 174 lauded as wonders of nature. These include the Great Barrier Reef, the Serengeti Desert, the Pyramids of Giza, the Statue of Liberty, the Great Wall of China, Mount Kenya, Edinburgh's Old and New Towns, Hadrian's Wall, Stonehenge, Memphis and its Necropolis, Persepolis, the Palace of Westminster, the centre of St Petersburg, the Banaue rice terraces in the Philippines and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station in Mumbai. The country with the biggest number of sites is Italy, which has 43.

Great Barrier Reef

How did the idea begin?

In 1954, the desert valley containing the twin Abu Simbel temples – which were carved out of a mountainside in southern Egypt in the 13th century BC on the orders of the Pharaoh Ramesses II – were about to be flooded by the building of the Aswan Dam. Frustrated by the Egyptian government's lack of action to protect the ancient buildings, Unesco launched a worldwide campaign that saved the temples by relocating them to higher ground at a cost of $80m, half of it collected from 50 countries.
The project was such a success that Unesco campaigns followed to save Venice and the ruins of one of the world's earliest urban settlements, Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan's Indus Valley, as well as the largest Buddhist structure in existence, the Borobodur temple compounds in Java, Indonesia.

Who decides whether heritage status is granted?

The Unesco World Heritage Committee, which is elected by nation states every four years. It meets once a year to choose the world's natural or human-made wonders in the greatest need of protection. Any country is eligible to send in a list of nominees for protection.
This year, the committee met in Quebec City, Canada, and added an extra 27 places across the globe to its list of "endangered species". Among them were more than 100 monumental tombs at Al-Hijr in Saudi Arabia, built by the Nabataean people between the first century BC and AD100. Another was the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Mexico, where one billion butterflies overwinter each year. The committee also added the island of Surtsey, which appeared 20 miles south of Iceland as a result of volcanic eruptions between 1963 and 1967, and is a pristine natural laboratory for the study of plant and animal colonisation.

What are the criteria for inclusion in the list?

Each site must meet at least one of 10 criteria. They must represent a "masterpiece of human creative genius", be "an important interchange of human values" or "bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to civilisation" past or present. Or they can be an outstanding example of a type of building or settlement which illustrates a significant stage in human history. They can "contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance", or be outstanding examples of major stages of Earth's history or ecological and biological processes in evolution. Sites can also house threatened species "of outstanding universal value".

How political is the choice?

Well, just nine per cent of the world heritage sites are in Africa and seven per cent in Arab countries, compared with 50 per cent in Europe and North America. This does suggest a certain cultural bias, but there are other political considerations. The US, whose government saw Unesco as a stalking horse for Communist and Third World countries to attack the West throughout the 1980s and 1990s, has refused to propose any new heritage sites since 1995. In that year, plans to open a gold mine near Yellowstone Park in Wyoming got the area placed on Unesco's "world heritage in danger" list. Conservatives in Washington decided that the scheme was an undercover attempt to subvert America's rights to govern itself and to destroy the fabric of US sovereignty.

Have there been any other controversies surrounding the scheme?

Pressure groups use world heritage status as a lever in political battles. In Australia, a group of Aborigines teamed up with environmentalists in a dispute over a uranium mine in the middle of the Kakadu National Park, a World Heritage Site which is home to hundreds of species of wildlife and is one of the country's oldest places of human occupation, dating back 60,000 years. Unesco called on ministers in Canberra to put a stop to the mining project, but the government hit backing, saying Unesco's report contained errors of fact, law, science and logic.
There was a similar row over a controversial hydroelectric dam project in La Amistad International Park, a world heritage-designated site which straddles Panama and Costa Rica and is Central America's largest and most diverse virgin rainforest.

What are the benefits?

Listed places receive extra media attention and tourists. That brings extra money in addition to cash from Unesco's preservation fund, though only developing countries can apply for the grants. Britain contributes £130,000 to the fund every year but gets nothing back, although world heritage status can attract extra funding from the national lottery and the private sector.
Publicity can help. Two 150ft statues of Buddha carved into a mountain in the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan in the 6th century, and which were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001, have received more than $4m from Unesco to help with the re-sculpting of the damaged stones.

And the disadvantages?

Listed places receive extra media attention and tourists. The higher profile that listing brings can draw an influx of visitors that poorer countries cannot handle. Fore example, the Angkor Wat temples in Cambodia, the Galapagos Islands and Machu Picchu in Peru have all seen massive increases in tourism. Sometimes listing does more harm than good and upsets the delicate balance between promoting places and preserving them.

Does it help to have World Heritage status?
Yes...
* It brings extra funds to poor countries to help conserve places of universal value
* It draws attention to the world's most neglected treasures and places of historic interest or natural beauty
* It can save places from total destruction by natural or human forces

No...
* It brings in floods of extra tourists whose footprint can do more harm than good
* It can have the effect of preserving a living place in aspic and stifling innovation
* It can undermine a country's right to make decisions about its own heritage
Related Articles
Development puts Bath's UN heritage status at risk

Well its happening elsewhere, the blatent disregard for having World Heritage Status. The beautiful city of Bath is under threat of losing their status, at the hands of Property Developers Crest Nicolson whose PR firm appears to be none other than infamous PPS who are the spindoctors for Caltongate Developers, Mountgrange see PPSClientsRead the Icomosobjection to the Bath plans. It all sounds depressingly familiar doesn`t it? Unesco are the body responsible for World Heritage Sites. bathpreservationtrust and bathheritagewatchdog are doing their best to protect their citys` heritage.Here its the EdinburghWorldHeritageTrust and the CockburnAssociation along with concerned citizens.

Edinburgh Under Investigation

Unesco to investigate if Edinburgh should lose world heritage status

Read Caltongate Calamity piece by Conservation architect James Simpson which gives the overall damage that Edinburgh faces if Caltongate was to go ahead.


Published Date: 07 July 2008 By BRIAN FERGUSON The Scotsman

Article in Evening News and BBC TV Coverage STV News

AN INVESTIGATION has been ordered into Edinburgh's World Heritage Status, The Scotsman has learned.

An official inquiry, which may lead to the capital being stripped of the title by Unesco, was launched yesterday at a summit of the world heritage committee in the Canadian city of Quebec.

Delegates said they were particularly concerned about the potential impact and handling by the Scottish Government of Caltongate, a massive new development in Edinburgh's Old Town, which was approved despite around 1,800 objections being received.

The Scottish Government, which approved the scheme last month after dismissing demands for a public inquiry, has been condemned for failing to consult Unesco before coming to a final decision on the scheme, which will see two listed buildings demolished to make way for a five-star hotel.

The inquiry will also examine the proposed redevelopment of Leith's docklands over the next 20 years and the planned revamp of the St James Centre.

A team of Unesco inspectors will visit Edinburgh later this year to assess its "state of conservation".

The Scottish Government has been ordered to submit its own dossier by February of next year. The 2009 Unesco summit in Seville will then decide if there is enough evidence for Edinburgh to be placed on the "at risk" register.

A spokesman for Unesco's world heritage committee said: "The committee voiced concern at the potential impact of the Caltongate development and were also deeply concerned that it was approved by the state government in June without complying with the operational guidelines for world heritage sites.

"The Scotsman understands that Unesco officials are adamant Caltongate fell under the category of "major restorations or new constructions which may affect the outstanding universal value of the property".

According to its guidelines, Unesco should be consulted before any such development is ruled on.

The opening of the inquiry into Edinburgh's world heritage status, which Unesco awarded to the Old and New Towns in 1995, will be a major concern for the city council and the Scottish Government.

Councillors have come under mounting pressure from their own officials and business leaders in the capital not to turn down major developments amid claims Edinburgh is losing out on investment to Manchester and Glasgow. However, heritage and conservation groups have repeatedly warned that Edinburgh's heritage status is being put at risk by over-development of sensitive sites.

About 2,000 jobs have been promised by Mountgrange, the developer of the £300 million Caltongate scheme, which involves the creation of a hotel and conference centre, 200 homes, a public square, office blocks and a new arts quarter.

Councillors approved the vast majority of the Caltongate scheme at the first time of asking. The same happened last month when a 17-storey hotel at Haymarket was approved despite claims it would ruin views from as far afield as the Dean Gallery and Inverleith Park.

Liverpool is already being investigated by Unesco amid concern over the scale of development at its waterfront, while a separate inquiry is under way into the impact of new skyscrapers near the Tower of London.

Historic Scotland endorsed the Caltongate development, but has been fiercely critical of the proposals for Leith Docks and the St James Centre.

Historic Scotland declined to comment yesterday, but culture minister Linda Fabiani, who is responsible for the agency, said: "I'm confident that when the Unesco mission visits our capital, it will see a vibrant, growing city which embraces its cultural and architectural heritage as well as managing an improvement in development that benefits Edinburgh as a whole.

"Steve Cardownie, Edinburgh's deputy council leader, said: "I don't think we'd be too perturbed over this. It's fairly commonplace for Unesco to re-evaluate World Heritage Sites and that kind of scrutiny goes along with the title. I don't think Edinburgh has done anything to devalue its status."The St Kilda archipelago, New Lanark and Orkney's "Neolithic Heart" are among Scotland's other world heritage sites.

Manish Chande of London Developers Mountgrange who are behind Caltongate. Will this image of him pulling a "Braveheart" bull come back to chase him out of the city as fast as he dragged it in.

See what will be lost here www.eh8.org.uk

Council Cocks Up

Council Cock up Cancels Community`s Canongate Street Party

East Market Street Saturday 28th June 11am - 4.30pm

The Canongate Street Party the last in The Canongate Project`s programme of events which is also part of The Old Town Festival`s programme has had to be cancelled at this late notice due to information received in a phone call from the council late on Friday afternoon. We have thought long and hard about this and in light of an event (of 420 plus) happening in the same street at the same time as this community event, it is therefore our opinion that the only option is to cancel the party for health and safety reasons.
Now the council knew about this other event happening since last year it appears, so why didn`t they tell us back in March/April then we could have chosen another date? Did they leave it to the last minute intentionally, or was it a good old fashioned cock-up?

You decide?

Please accept our apologies to all of you who were going to have a stall, entertain, help on the day or were looking forward to the party.
Tel 07788 755303 or email us at canongatecommunityforumATyahoo.co.ukhere if you require more information.


Emergency SOOT Meeting Thursday 26th June 7.30pm
doors open 7pm

at The Canongate Project`s Shop at 8 St Mary`s Street, just off The Royal Mile See Map

Come along and discuss the future actions of The Save Our Old Town Campaign -

Why the Land Deal between the Council and Caltongate Developer`s Mountgrange is currently undergoing investigation by the EU.

Find out how SOOT is going Global while still acting local by linking up with others across the world in New York

and what next month in Quebec means for Edinburgh`s World Heritage Status.

Save Our Old Town Website

Bath and Edinburgh At Risk

The issue of whether Bath should be stripped of its coveted World Heritage status because of the controversial Western Riverside development is to be scrutinised by conservation experts from across the globe.

The United Nations' World Heritage Committee will meet in Quebec, Canada, in July ? and the question of Bath's status is high on the agenda. The committee will decide whether Bath should be formally placed on its World Heritage 'in danger' list because of the Western Riverside scheme.
The 43-acre development along the Avon will feature residential housing blocks, which objectors say will spoil the city's skyline. World Heritage Status brings huge kudos to the cities and locations which hold it.
To lose it would be a sharp blow to Bath's reputation as a world-leading tourism destination. Full Article Here
See more here on Bath

Edinburgh is also at risk of losing her World Heritage Status because of the proposed Caltongate scheme.

"ICOMOS-UK considers that the Caltongate project should have been referred to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre.

Furthermore we consider that it would be appropriate for the UNESCO World Heritage Committee to consider these proposals. However, as quoted above, such notification should take place before any approval is given.

If the proposals are referred to the World Heritage Centre, then they might be considered by the World Heritage Committee at its next session in Quebec in July 2008. The Committee would then have the option to ask for a joint UNESCO WH Centre/ICOMOS Mission to consider the project and the Mission’s report would be presented to the Committee. If they were concerned, the Committee could press for changes to be made to the project or they have the option to consider putting the site on the List of World Heritage in Danger until such time as the threats could be removed." February 2008 6th this is taken from ICOMOS On Caltongate

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