Evening News mourns Caltongate

Caltongate: 'Mountgrange at least had an innovative plan'
This is the Evening News Comment from yesterday to accompany the devastating news that Caltongate is on the brink of collapse, see yesterdays posting.

AFTER years of consultation and compromise it is unfortunate that the Caltongate project is likely to at the very least be further delayed due to the dire circumstances in which the development company finds itself.

Love the idea or hate it, Mountgrange had at least come up with an innovative scheme to breathe new life into a derelict corner of the inner city.Such problems have already resulted in delays to other major regeneration projects at Springside on the former Fountain Brewery Site and at Shawfair, where plans to create a "new town" on the outskirts of the city have also been shelved.Elsewhere, progress at Granton and on the Waterfront is slow and the plan to develop a medical park at Little France shows little sign of progression. The commercial property market is, to say the least, difficult and it will take some time to recover.

During the lengthy period it has taken Mountgrange to obtain planning permission for its housing, leisure and business scheme its fortunes have slumped dramatically. The company has posted losses in excess of £24 million and has seen the value of the Caltongate site plummet by almost £18 million. Its auditors gloomily forecast that they are uncertain as to whether it can keep trading. But before those who fought against the scheme celebrate, they must remember that the site will eventually be developed and the principles which underpinned it will not go away.

It is understandable that in the present economic climate that banks are wary about backing companies such as Mountgrange who are involved in speculative construction projects. There is plenty unfilled office space in Edinburgh, with more becoming available soon, and not too many firms are queuing up to expand or move into new premises. Housebuilders are finding it difficult to unload even what affordable housing is being completed.

Against this background it is somewhat reassuring that the city council today has earmarked an additional £1.4m in next year's budget to help stimulate economic growth. It hopes for an outlay of almost £4m that it will attract over a hundred times that in new investment and it promises to invest more the following year should it be required.Aiming to attract such level of investment in these times may seem an ambitious target but the city must continue to aim high. Recessions don't last for ever and Edinburgh must ensure that when it is over it is in the best position to take advantage of any opportunities that might become available.

From an article at the end of last year Councils look to get their message through letterboxes more often in The Sunday Herald, the Evening News has let the City Of Edinburgh Council and Mountgrange know exactly how much they support them!
from the article -

John McLellan, editor of the Evening News, scorns the suggestion that this outlay should be increased to compensate for his paper's shortcomings.

"I am really sorry that I have caused those poor sensitive dears so much heartache. I take it as a compliment. If you actually analysed the main policies on which the council has received criticism, you would find that we supported them.



We were behind the trams, the rationalisation of schools, the Caltongate development and the decision to demolish Meadowbank stadium. "On the point of the leadership of the council, we are reflecting exactly what every civic leader says about them."

Chris Hoy appeals to save Meadowbank

The Independent Republic wishes to share its congratulations to Chris Hoy and points out the need for local sports facilities.

Chris Hoy in video appeal for Meadowbank to be saved

August 18, 2008 — savemeadowbank

Triple Olympic medallist Chris Hoy has given his backing to the campaign to save Meadowbank from closure.

The most successful Scottish Olympian of all time learned his craft in his home town of Edinburgh and readily admits he wouldn’t have achieved his record haul had it not been for the Meadowbank velodrome. Yet Edinburgh Council plan to ignore thousands of objections and demolish the velodrome - plus the neighbouring international athletics stadium and sports centre - and replace it with a cut-down complex that doesn’t cater for most of its current sports, including cycling.

In the video clip, produced by Edinburgh Racers, Chris Hoy said: ”Elite sport cannot stand alone without local facilities giving kids the chance to get into the sport in the first place. I really hope Edinburgh is going to continue to produce world champion cyclists in the future but we cannot do this without a local facility.”

Mark Barry, director of youth racing in Manchester, added: ”This is a track that has been absolutely fundamental in the success of the Great Britain cycling team. Most of our world, Olympic and European champions have come from here.”

The video highlights the lack of proper investment since the Meadowbank track was built forty years ago and the absence of a roof, which causes several events to be rained off every year.

Allister Watson, director of Scottish Cycling, made a telling comparison between Scotland’s top two medal-winning sports: ”Cycling is Scotland’s second most successful Commonwealth Games sport. The most successful sport is swimming. I wonder how our swimmers would get on if there was only one swimming pool for the country and it was outside.”

Save Meadowbank spokesman Kevin Connor welcomed the video. He said: ”Chris Hoy is a great role model and proof of what Meadowbank has helped achieve. Imperfect facilities are better than no facilities at all. Edinburgh Council claim they are being forced to radically downscale Meadowbank purely on financial grounds. If that is the case we call upon the Scottish Government to provide them with adequate funding.”

• Sign the e-petiton
• Read the Case for Grassroots Facilities
• SMC submitted this document in response to a Dec 2007 Edinburgh Council report recommending that Councillors agree to fund a small centre by selling off a huge chunk of the Meadowbank site for housing. Their report entirely ignored the interests of cyclists. Councillors went on to agree to the sell-off including the loss of the velodrome.
• See this Evening News Mouthpiece article by Save Meadowbank written in the days after Edinburgh Council voted to rid Edinburgh of its velodome back in March. Significant sections were edited out by the newspaper, including the total omission of the case for the Meadowbank Velodrome. The original uncensored article can be seen here, with the censored elements in CAPITAL LETTERS.
• SMC Organising meetings

SOOT Fundraiser tonight 14th march

Get yourself along to The Canon`s Gait Cellar Bar tonight from 8pm til 1am. Map

Acts so far include ,Missing Cat , David McGinty
Andrew Gordon and Sabai

From Yesterdays Eve News
Caltongate
'a threat to world heritage status'
AN architectural historian who has demanded a European investigation into the £300 million Caltongate scheme has warned that losing the city's world heritage status is a "very real prospect". David Black has contacted the European Commission with allegations that the city council broke competition laws over the sale of land for the massive project. Mr Black has raised a number of concerns over the council's handling of the scheme.

As a result, campaigners have vowed to lobby Unesco's heritage arm in a bid to place the Capital on an "endangered" list. The international council on monuments and sites has also said it is "appropriate" for Unesco to examine the scheme. But developer Mountgrange has insisted there is no justification for an investigation, and has called the threat of losing status a "wild suggestion".

There is a poll on the article`s page to the right hand side which you can vote on which asks you -

Are you pleased that councillors have approved the Caltongate scheme?
Yes, Edinburgh has to change to survive and thrive
Yes, as long as the Royal Mile tenements are preserved
No, it’s architectural vandalism on a grand scale

There was bad news for the Save Meadowbank Campaigners as MEADOWBANK Stadium is to be demolished and a third of the site sold off to pay for a new £25 million centre following a vote by city councillors. The decision was reached last night, despite protests from campaigners battling to save the site. Read more Eve News

Someone has left the following comment on the Caltongate article

"Caltongate, the Waterfront, leisure facilities, wanton disregard for Common Good land and assets, parks and open spaces. Why dont all the groups get together and have a "Reclaim our City for the Citizens" movement? I'd join."

They have a point, what is the future for those who live in the capital all year round? Are we to go and be replaced by hotels, conference centres, office blocks and become a city who forgot its most important asset, her people?

The following letter in todays Eve News adds to this

YOUR article on figures released by the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (Holyrood's £100,000 window cleaning bill, News, March 11) reveals the amount spent each year cleaning the windows of The Scottish Parliament.

It is obscene that this can happen in a city where the council has recently downgraded pensioners' meal provision from fresh food, to microwaved instant garbage, in order to save money.

If the building is still here in the year 6608 we will have spent what the building originally cost in just cleaning its damned windows! Not that the Scottish Parliament building will be here in 6608 . . . nor 2033 probably. Like anything else put up in Edinburgh these days it will be lucky to last 30 years before we pull it down before it falls down.

If the MSPs had been content with the debating chamber, offices and splendour of the Royal High, and the nearby working accommodation of old St Andrews House, the fabric of the buildings would outlast the institution of Parliament using them.

We desperately need architects and developers with the bravery to build for a long future, not Caltongate carpetbaggers who take the money and run. Mind you, as soon as the powers-that-be realise that the Parliament, Caltongate and the new council HQ, will be tottering wrecks when the old council building on the High Street will still have 200 years left in it, they'll probably knock that down too.

What is it about longevity in a building that offends the planner, architect and developer so?

Save Meadowbank

Rally to Save Meadowbank - March 10th - Holyrood Abbey Church - 19.30

February 27, 2008 — savemeadowbank

Meadowbank is an essential sports & leisure centre serving the whole of Edinburgh and beyond, and should be upgraded. However, there is still a real risk that a large part of Meadowbank may be sold off to property developers. City of Edinburgh Council will be meeting on March 13th to decide.

This campaign continues to oppose any sale of land and any reduction in the range and level of sports facilities offered at Meadowbank and we would like to share with you, at a public rally, our detailed plans to upgrade Meadowbank, and to offer you the opportunity to challenge leading Council and national politicians over theirs.

Date: Monday March 10th

Place: Holyrood Abbey Church, 83 London Road, Edinburgh, EH7 5TT

Time: 19.30

What can you do:

Help promote the rally by assisting at our flyering sessions.

Download this poster to advertise the rally.

Download this leaflet and distribute among your friends, family, colleagues and neighbours.

Email your Local Councillors explaining what you think of any plan to sell off Meadowbank, neither in whole nor in part.

Forward this Email on to your friends, family, etc, and any suitable contact lists.

Very importantly, though, come to the rally on Mar 10th.

Be there if you care; When it’s gone it’s gone; Don’t let it happen!

Edinburgh at Risk

EAR on Youtube

Capital has a heritage worth standing up for

THE intention of the council to withdraw support for Edinburgh World Heritage comes as no surprise to campaigners embroiled in myriad struggles with a council intent on destroying the city's heritage by adopting a policy of flogging off assets as a short term cure for the financial mismanagement of previous administrations.

The result of this intention will be the continued transformation of Edinburgh from a city of heritage and character to a banal living space. One only has to look at the changing skyline over recent years to witness its evolution from historic city of unique character to mere development opportunity for Legoland flats.

Short-sighted and unethical decisions such as this withdrawal of funding fail to take account of longer-term impact upon the city community or that community's views. Compare the councils cosy attitude to developments such as Caltongate which threatens the very heart of the city or the Orrocco Hotel extension over public land to its hostile disregard for those who development affects most.

The result has been the formation of a whole host of community based campaigns determined to save the city's Common Good assets.

Facilities such as Meadowbank Stadium and Portobello Park belong to us and are supposed to be managed on our behalf but are being auctioned off against our wishes. Even the watchdog Audit Scotland is complicit in this sell off, sitting on its hands as Edinburgh and other councils hock our assets.

Councillors turn their pockets inside out to demonstrate fiscal powerlessness and close schools while public finances swill about and sink into private coffers for the development of trams and staging umpteen festivals.

My view is that the bad news for you, the reader, is that while you too sit on your hands, this situation will get worse. You will have to get used to the decimation of the city's character and the theft of common good assets while your council tax money augments the profits of private developers and subsidises events outside the city, such as Glasgow's hosting of 2014 Commonwealth Games.

The ray of hope is that local people are organising themselves to resist. The rise of organisations such as Save Our Old Town, Porty Greenkeepers, Save Our Schools and the success of Portobello Campaign Against the Superstore, etc, indicates that people realise they cannot trust political parties to represent their interests.

This is reflected throughout Scotland where the Development Trusts Association for Scotland and Local People Leading report Edinburgh City Council is prepared to see Edinburgh go from World Heritage site to just another vapid modern city - just as they prepared to destroy our heritage and public utilities for a short term "solutions".

By Kevin F Ferguson who is a member of Edinburgh At Risk Article Dec 07

Save Meadowbank Porty Greenkeepers Save Glenogle Baths

Friends of CorstorphineHill Gardyloo Save Our Old Town