Canongate Snowtime

View up the Canongate with Macrae tenements to the right

which are to be demolished for Accor Five Star Hotel.

Up and down past the Canongate Tollbooth

Every morning pigeons sit on the Canongate Kirk and a crow on the stags antlers.

View toward New Street site where bulk of Caltongate to be built, with Canongate Venture in foreground, to be demolished for 5 star hotel`s conference centre. Calton Hill in background.

Whats left of the Belltower on the Canongate Venture building, which the council vandalised in 2007.

Where is Jock the Weathercock?

View through former Vegetable Market and Canongate Venture on East Market St to the new council headquarters. Caltongate buildings to replace the market and school are basically more of the same, basically nothing but glass with the odd bit of opaque material, So lots of heat lost in winter then blinds down when a ray of sunshine appears.

The lights are on but no-one's in at council offices

ARRIVING in the city at the end of last month to take up a six-month work contract I was greeted as the train pulled in by what looked like a new office block ablaze with all its lights left on (all weekend no doubt) and not a soul inside.
My first thought was that the city council would be ashamed of any firm engaging in such high-profile corporate eco-terrorism, making such an unfavourable first impression upon visitors. When I saw the building again in the same state later in the week and went to find out who it belonged to, I could really hardly believe it is none other than the city council's own HQ – you couldn't make it up!It really beggars belief that the council can be so inept that they would set such a brazenly bad example. I can't imagine I'm the only person in the city to take issue with this, and wonder whether there is any way that something can be done about it? I assume they have some sort of environmental policy, however rudimentary? I noted with approval before I arrived that the city had elected some Green party councillors – how I sympathise with them if they have to try to tackle Neanderthal behaviour of this kind from the ruling group and/or officers!

Robert Steel, Dean Park Crescent, Edinburgh

Someone has written in about the Johnston Terrace Tree Travesty from last week -

Trees down but ineptitude grows

I WAS saddened to read of the crass stupidity of the parks department in cutting down the trees in King's Stables Road (News, February 4). Is there no end to the incompetence of our overstaffed, overpaid, underworked council departments?Anyone with half a brain knows trees and bushes are a stabilising factor where you have an embankment, otherwise it will erode and the earth slip down the slope.The "over-the-top" reaction by these jobsworths typifies the poor administrative skills and judgement of council staff where silly people justify their expensive existence by coming up with hare-brained ideas like this.Besides the loss of greenery and wildlife, planting wild flowers is a pathetic response to such civic vandalism.

Cecilia C Cavaye, Durham Terrace, Edinburgh

Both letters appear in today`s Evening News

Caltongate not to happen?

Above a blast from the past in 2006, with our Canongate Coo in front of the Macrae tenements emptied for greedy property developer`s Mountgrange, who planted perspex cows all over the city with their name on it for the Cow Parade that year.

Word on the street is that the council are re-populating the empty council tenancies that they emptied on behalf on Mountgrange, so they could knock them down for their French run Accor Caltongate luxury 5 star hotel.

But now in these uncertain global economic times, it looks like they are listening to folk like us and housing the citys`s residents, which is their first priority, instead of pandering to London resident Manish Chande demands.

The council have still not answered a FOI request from October on the council tenancies at 221 and 227 Canongate. See Here

See SOOT`s 2008`s Hogmanay Protest outside empty homes

Caltongate Hotel Cancelled

French Hotel Group Accor may pull out of Caltongate, as 5 star Hotels are lying empty at what should be Edinburgh`s busiest time of year


Headlines today say it all -
Scottish hotel downturn worst in Britain as trade plunges by 7% Scotsman

Stage set for a difficult year as rooms remain empty before Festival Scotsman


Waste depot protesters call for demo at city chambers on Wednesday 30th July

The campaign group Portobello Opposes New Waste Site, or Pongs, has urged people to attend next week's planned protest. It has the backing of Edinburgh East MP Gavin Strang, who this week wrote to every member of the council's planning committee to outline local concerns.Mr Strang said it was only the second time in 30 years that he had felt compelled to make such a move. "This is the wrong site, no question, and I am very concerned that the views of my constituents are properly heard," he said. Robert Gatliff, the chairman of Portobello Community Council, agreed that local residents were very concerned that Viridor was looking to force through a development in the wrong place."There is also the worry that this site could be used for something else in future, such as a passenger rail terminal or even a tram terminal, but if this rubbish depot is constructed that will no longer be a possibility and the people here will lose out."

A spokesman for Viridor said the company planned to create a "state-of-the-art facility"."The facility will reduce traffic volumes and reduce CO2 emissions by 42 per cent," he said. "This is achieved by shifting transport of waste from road to rail, bringing an important rail freight facility back into long-term viable use. "Vehicles using the facility will mainly operate outside peak traffic times and will use Sir Harry Lauder Road, thus not contributing significantly to traffic levels in the area." Full Article 22nd July



Viridor the waste company use PPS Group the controversial PR company run in Scotlan, by none other than Caltongate Devotee Donald Anderson, former Nu Labour leader of City of Edinburgh`s Council Planners give Nod 25th July 08

PPS Group motto -"Call PPS if ...you need to undertake community consultation or if you feel your scheme may run into political or community opposition." hotlinehere


So you can be sure this is a scheme which is no good for anyone other than the folk wanting to build it and run it, miles and miles away from their homes and communities of course!

If you can help then get yourself up to the City Chambers from 8.15 am - the meeting starts at 9am

The "Caltongate" Five Star Hotel

The French hotel group Accor is to replace the Canongate Tenements which have 8 council tenancies as well as the flats bought by Mountgrange`s letting agents Rettie and Co. They will also have the conference centre that would replace the listed historical building the Canongate Venture on East Market St. It is very much a game of Monopoly

The hotel operator are prepared to go in and build their 5 star Sofitel hotel where historical buildings and homes should stay, just so they can have a sought after address on Edinburgh`s Monopoly board - The Royal Mile.

The founder of the Accor group has been in the news lately talking about his bike ride in Tibet

And it looks like Mountgrange wants to help spread SOOT all over the Auld Reekie once again, by having real fires in the exclusive rooms, so much for their green washing of it all with their underground heating source system paid by the British Taxpayer awarded by Alastair Darling.....(the social housing will not be served by it of course, now don`t be silly) They think that we don`t know that it is environmentally damaging to knock down sound stone buildings (emodied energy) and replace them with lumps of concrete and glass.....but hey, if they mention the words sustainability, underground source heating, Department of Trade and Industry giving grants!! then tee hee we will be fooled.

"Chande told Property Week: ‘The upper floors will have the “wow factor”, with stunning views over the Old Town and Calton Hill from the presidential suite. There are real chimneys, so guests can enjoy proper fires in their rooms. " Article

Welcome to Hotel Caltongate

22 days to go...www.eh8.org.ukAbove is the proposed Caltongate Hotel which is to be a French Accor, no surprise there then as Mountgrange developer Manish Chande will tell you "He was Chief Executive and co-founder of Land Securities Trillium Plc (LS Trillium), the UK’s leading total property outsourcing company"morehere

"Trillium's Millions Land 30 Accor Hotels Accor has agreed a sale and leaseback deal involving 30 of its hotels (5,000 rooms) in the UK. Land Securities Trillium (LST), part of the Land Securities Group, will pay £439 million for the mix of Ibis and Novotel properties, which Accor will operate under 12-year variable leases for a total of 84 years. LST will pay an additional £35 million over four years towards the renovation of the portfolio. Accor intends to use the agreement to create a long-term partnership with Land Securities that will allow the hotel chain to develop further in the UK. " Hospitalitynews

Last Tuesday this Article appeared entitled "Royal Mile Flats Saved as Demolition Ditched"

The Save Our Old Campaign got in touch with The Evening News saying this was misleading and untrue. But all they printed the next day was an article which didn`t state the facts yet again, but one that implied that those moany protestors will never be happy, even when the developers twist the facts and try to make out they have listened to what concerns people and heritage bodies have about this "once in a generation" Caltongate.

But today we read that at least Caltongates` major architect AllanMurray Architects has rubbished reports that an integral part of its £300 million Caltongate masterplan in Edinburgh has been scrapped. The following article appears on The Architects` Journal

"An Edinburgh Evening News report claimed that, due to pressure from several of the Scottish capital's numerous heritage bodies, plans to demolish a section of Royal Mile tenements had been shelved.However, speaking to the AJ, practice principal Allan Murray said that the scheme for developer Mountgrange was still going ahead.
'It is right that the application has been withdrawn, but it hasn't been scrapped – it has simply been replaced,' Murray said.
'There was an issue over a breakthrough that will create a link between the new public square and Waverley Station. This is now being replaced by a doubled height, covered route through.' "
Thanks Allan!