Its official, Edinburgh Council are Vandals

The Republic received this letter on what seems to be a premeditated act of vandalism....one in the course of many.... "Having upset a lot of people by cutting down many of the trees in the Grassmarket, the Council’s wood butchers have now turned their attention to Kings Stables Rd.

In the last 2 days a pleasant green outlook from the tenements has been turned into what looks like a first World War battlefield. Practically every tree and shrub on the slope up to Johnston Terrace has been cut to the ground; the few remaining left like telegraph poles.

Does the Council arrogantly assume that locals did not value their view onto trees and bushes, not to mention the rabbits and the birds, including blackbirds which used to sing as dusk fell? Could they not have asked us before wreaking this devastation? Were the trees threatening anyone? What is the reason for this vandalism?

The tenements in the street back onto a yard owned by the Council so we have no back greens of our own. The pleasant view we had over the trees to the Castle was some recompense – but now that has been taken away from us."

Jim Johnson King Stables Road Grassmarket Edinburgh






This article Anger as Trees Cut Down appears today which sadly only tells us what has been lost, what have we gained? Nothing....but perhaps someone somewhere has gained from this act of vandalism..and it won`t be long until this becomes known.

The 2nd person to comment on the article online has asked this question "Or is it something to do with the proposed redevelopment of King's Stables Road and Argyle House?"

Another Allan Murray development???!!!!!!!!!!

Now why would the council order the act of vandalism when this exists in Johnston Terrace Johnston Terrace Wildlife Reserve ? and see more at Gardens of Scotland?

For the history on the reserve see Geddes and Johnston Terrace Patrick Geddes

Does Edinburgh Deserve Caltongate?

Edinburgh is Being Vandalised yesterdays posting found us this great image, source unknown....and got us here in the Republic thinking, is Caltongate merely a reflection of the self obsessed, greedy times we have been living in for the past decade or so? Maybe now that those times are coming to an end....so will the threat of Caltongate ...

This article Architect Hits Back in Edinburgh UNESCO Row in Building Design "The Architect`s Website" on the 29th Aug 08 the following comments on it are worth more of a look than the article ....

Edinburgh is being Vandalised

Nothing Less Than Vandalism

Above is one possible emblem for Edinburgh, replacing the UNESCO

World Heritage Emblem which the city looks set to lose....

Joanna Blythman on built heritage in today`s The Sunday Herald

Thanks to the unique blend of medieval and neo-classical architecture in its old and new towns, Edinburgh holds a coveted international listing as a Unesco World Heritage Site, an accolade only awarded to places of exceptional architectural and historical merit.

Read here why

This is a huge honour, so you might think that all the councillors and officials who passed through the portals of the city chambers would be circumspect enough to realise that even if the finer points of architecture were beyond them, you don't imperil such a listing. No such luck. Koichiro Matsuura, the director-general of this UN cultural body, has had to warn Edinburgh that if it proceeds with certain new developments (of which more below), its world heritage status may be threatened. He has requested that the city puts these plans on hold, pending Unesco's investigation, or risk having its Unesco status stripped from it.

Man from UNESCO, he say no


The alarm has been sounded, but smug Edinburgh Council shows no signs of taking heed. In the past it would have. For decades, conservatism and preservation of the status quo were the order of the day. Thanks to the vigilance of groups such as the Cockburn Association, most of the lunatic plans advanced for the city were thwarted, with the prominent exception of the St James Centre. Not bad going when you think that Glasgow got saddled with a motorway that savaged its Victorian grid.


Unfortunately in recent years Edinburgh has been plagued by councillors who, though their politics differ, have one thing in common - their egos are bigger than their brains and their judgement is wanting. Puffed up and romanced by developers and modernist architects who feed them the pretentious, self-aggrandising vocabulary of "iconic buildings", "signature architecture", "architectural statements" and "iconoclastic, brave development" - like teenage vandals carving their initials on the ancient stones of the Acropolis - they yearn to leave their hubristic mark on the city for posterity. Hence the spate of fatally misconceived plans that are being given the go-ahead, even though they perpetuate old mistakes and grind their killer heels in the face of Edinburgh's handsome heritage.


How on Earth was the capital's number one vandal, Edinburgh University, allowed to squeeze yet another architecturally meritless, oversized concrete block into Bristo Square? With its track record of flattening three sides of Georgian George Square and erecting the monstrous David Hume Tower, it should have been placed on a Gary Glitter-style register of recidivist architectural offenders never to be trusted.


Just next to abused George Square, the city's Quartermile development is partially completed. A riot of U-PVC and tinted glass that spurns more vernacular, sustainable materials like wood and stone, its overpriced, aspirational yuppie condominiums add only to our housing stock of exclusive, soulless, ever-so-slightly sinister compounds for the very rich.


Then there's the scandal of Caltongate, where two listed buildings on the historic Royal Mile are to be demolished to make way for a five-star hotel and conference centre - as if Edinburgh needs another. But the most monstrously inappropriate scheme yet given approval is the 17-storey (yes, that's right, 17-storey!) hotel and office development at Haymarket. This has been sold by its promoters as "a gateway of blade-like sharpness in the form of a tower" that will "act as a beacon at night" and function as "a gateway building marking the entry into the World Heritage Site from the west". What preposterous and fanciful nonsense.


I happen to agree, on the whole, with Leon Krier, guru of the New Urbanism school of architecture, who said that "the most beautiful and pleasant cities which survive in the world today have all been conceived with buildings of between two and five floors". Even those who go for all that "street in the sky" rhetoric spouted by ideologues of modernism ought to admit that Edinburgh is not Manhattan. However bored architects may be with working in the confines of a conservation-minded city, a philistine should see that 17 storeys are brazenly out of scale among Edinburgh's traditionally low-rise buildings.

It's hard to see Haymarket's proposed tower (above) as anything other than a grotesquely super-sized, overbearing monument to architectural arrogance and civic stupidity. Worse, I interpret it as a declaration that it is now open season on Edinburgh's outstanding urban heritage, one that ratifies the Caltongate precedent.


Former Lord Provost Lesley Hinds betrayed a rare flash of self-doubt after the Haymarket decision when she remarked that "we will be damned or we might be congratulated in the future".



I'll place my bet now. The Haymarket tower will be viewed as Edinburgh's biggest post-St James Centre planning gaffe and those who voted for it as dangerous idiots.

St James Centre

It's not just the odd bad building here and there. The plans for Edinburgh become ever more scarring and radical. Part of me wants to see the miscreants punished by losing Unesco status, but then Edinburgh suffers along with them.

Sean Connery who visited the capital last week, perhaps warning the first minister of the danger the city faces

Time for the grown-ups to step in. Alex Salmond must hold an inquiry into both the Caltongate and Haymarket follies before the council fouls up the city's heritage for posterity.

More on the vandalism of Edinburgh

The Vandalism of Edinburgh

Mark Cummings PR supervandal for all developments that stink , collects his wages

Today we must catch up on all the news, on our holidays at the moment so daily postings not possible -- but one thing is clear we must all write to UNESCO asap - To inform the World Heritage Committee about the threats to Edinburgh write to - Committee's Secretariat at -

wh-info@unesco.org

It's time to turf vandals at the 'gate out of office

Letters Evening News 15th July 2008

"YESTERDAY I (and presumably the other 2000 objectors to the Caltongate affair) received a letter from dear old Edinburgh City Council informing me that the first phase of demolition work in the course of the Caltongate development had been approved, and will shortly commence.
My computer dictionary defines the word 'vandalism' as "deliberate, mischievous, or malicious destruction – or damage – of property" (particularly in regard to public property). Who are the greater vandals – the 16-year-olds spraying their tags on a building wall, or the councillors and council officers who have driven through the Caltongate abomination against significant local objection, and failed the people they were elected and appointed to serve? It is time to clean the hive, and I appeal to every one of my fellow voters to vote for anyone except your sitting councillor at the next council election ... and if you like the idea, tell someone else about it: let's dump the whole lot and start again. Voting in a clean council would only be the start, because the new council should be pressed to dismiss those council officers who significantly promoted the worst depredations of its predecessor."

Evening News 16th July 08 Tory Cooncillor Rose (who voted for Caltongate on the planning committee in Feb 08) rabbles on trying to justify the vandalism committed against the city ...really you should be ashamed of yourself and do good in your retirement from the police.

Architect Peter Wilson has something to say on Rebus Rose Rantings

Thorny Subject
Still in Edinburgh, Planning Committee member, Councillor Cameron Rose, has taken it upon himself to expose the architectural and urban design credentials that made him an obvious choice for the job. The retired police inspector feels a “legislative look” at Historic Scotland’s listing policy should be taken, a viewpoint formed from his bewilderment that a building such as the Royal Commonwealth Pool by RMJM could possibly merit it’s A-listed status.
Showing a commendable appreciation of 1960’s architecture, Councillor Rose feels that “it’s debatable whether it has historic significance”. His real beef, however, is with a listing process that allowed two C category buildings to impede the Council’s eagerness to appease the developer of the Caltongate site next to its new headquarters. As with so many of his colleagues, he is happy to repeat the public relations rhetoric that the proposed project is “creating a new living community” in the heart of the Old Town, encouraging the thought that perhaps it is the city’s Planning Committee itself that merits a legislative look at some of its recent decisions. Article on Architecture Scotland

Then in the Times Article July 17th 08 an unnamed vandal says -

"A spokesman for Mountgrange, the property company that is developing the £300 million site next to the Royal Mile in the Old Town, said that work was likely to begin before Christmas. He added that the scheme would reflect “the way we live today whilst respecting the past”. (Pass the sickbag, quick!)