Now that the £850 million development at St James Quarter is about to begin, the council has a wee problem.
And they need your help!
The bridge over Leith Street will become surplus to requirements when the St James Centre is demolished – so the idea is that the bridge will be removed to a safe place and then re-used. It is a sizeable structure so it will take a large enough space to find it a home.
Where do you think the council should put this quirky structure?
It could open up a new project such as High Line in New York where they reused a whole train line to create a public park. It was in turn modelled on the promenade plantée in Paris which is a high level walkway and off road path. It encompasses the Viaduc des Arts below it, and is a much loved feature of the 12th arrondissement.
In Lambeth there is already planning permission from one of the councils involved for the Garden Bridge which might become an iconic new public garden and crossing over the Thames.
Further down Leith Walk the charity Edinburgh & Lothians Greenspace Trust already proposed to the council that a railway bridge which was in place above the Walk until 1980 would be reinstated.
This project would use the railway arches at either side of the road, thus creating an east-west active travel route to connect Pilrig Park and the other cycle paths to the north with Easter Road and Portobello.
Architects Biomorphis have drawn up plans to use vacant land in such a way that the area would become a destination with associated economic benefit. This draws on the ideas already developed in Paris and New York. There is a fly over video showing how it might work:
Drone’s eye view of Leith Bridge from leithbridge on Vimeo.
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
