For this week’s edition of ‘Nimby Watch’, we’re off to Leith, just outside Edinburgh, where someone’s attempting to build a mixed-use housing development…
Where are we? This week, we’re in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, which was facing the loss of an ‘iconic’ local landmark
If you’re suggesting demolishing the castle to build high-density housing, that’s a bit much even for me. Edinburgh Castle is safe for now. The site in question featured in the ‘Trainspotting’ film franchise, and would face demolition to build 46 flats for students, another 46 for anyone, and various gym and cinema facilities too.
It’s not the public loos from that scene, is it? I was hoping they demolished those decades ago. Apparently not. The fate of the loos, which hosted Renton’s famous swimming trip, is unknown. Instead, it’s the ‘iconic scrapyard’ from Trainspotting 2 that was at threat from the developers.
I didn’t see that one. Pretty much no one did.
What’s ‘iconic’ about the scrapyard, then? Well … that’s a good question. The word means ‘a representative symbol … worthy of veneration’, but the scrapyard in question is, well, a scrapyard. It’s been in operation since the mid-1990s, so it’s hardly a slice of ancient history.
So, what was going to be on the site, if it wasn’t a scrapyard? A large chunk of the site would have been given over to student housing, which is rarely popular with the locals because, fairly obviously, most of them aren’t students and the students that use halls of residence aren’t from the local area – so people don’t really see the benefit.
That … seems fair enough, actually. To a point, it is. There is an argument that students come to Edinburgh anyway, and if they don’t have the option of specialist student housing they compete with locals for existing housing – so even halls of residence take some pressure off.
Is that a winning argument? In practice, no – it seems to be correct, but people don’t find it convincing. In the same way that even new luxury homes help housing supply, because they free up existing homes further down the chain, new student housing is still new supply. But people prefer something more direct.
Why don’t they require homes for locals on new student housing sites, then? Edinburgh does! That’s why this site contained general-purpose housing, including 30 flats that were intended as build-to-rent, 16 of which would have been designated as affordable. In theory, there would have been something for everyone.
You seem to have slipped ominously into the past tense here. Ah, you noticed. Yes, planning permission has been refused after 126 local objections and various other concerns were raised. These included that the development didn’t fully meet the requirements of the local plan, concerns about the natural light in some of the student accommodation, and questions over the ability of people to exit if flooding was severe.
Okay, so we just improve the plan, right? That’s the vibe the councillors would like to give off. ‘I hope the developer will now reconsider [and] listen to the views of local residents’, said one, encouraging them to come back with a plan that delivers more ‘mainstream housing, including social rented accommodation’, adding that ‘if they can do that, and also address concerns over flooding and air quality, then I feel confident they will get a more positive decision’.
That sounds like quite a lot of improvements to make. It does, doesn’t it? The developer put in the set of proposals that has just been rejected in 2023, so this has already taken over a year. Trying to come up with a new set of plans that addresses half a dozen more issues, with no guarantees of a ‘yes’ at the end, is hardly encouraging.
But at least the councillors aren’t Nimbys. At least someone who says they don’t want anything built near them is honest. The ‘we’d say yes to the right project, but not this one’ group is much more common, and much more responsible for why we never get anything built – but are also much more indignant about the whole thing.
Still, at least the residents of Leith get longer to enjoy their iconic scrapyard. And the ‘Trainspotting 2’ fans that presumably flock there in droves.
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