At a longish meeting this morning at the City Chambers, the owner of the Craigentinny and Telferton Allotments, Avant Homes, made a fifteen minute presentation in support of their application to build homes there with 40 allotments and 7 affordable homes. The committee unanimously upheld the officers’ recommendation to reject the application for housing.
The allotment holders were very happy:
Fantastic news! The Council has rejected the planning application to build houses on our allotment site 🙂
— C-T Allotments (@CraigentinnyTel) April 13, 2016
The site extends to 1.4 hectares and has been laid out as allotments since 1923. We explained the back story here. There have been several applications in relation to the site since 1981 and a house builder owns it, so it was obviously going to apply again.
One problem is that the allotments have been there for 90 years, but the legal position of the allotment holders has constantly been called into question by the legal owner, Avant Homes.
Another issue is that there is a land supply shortage in the city. The population of the city rises by 1% each year, which is 100 extra people coming to live in Edinburgh each week. So there is a need for more housing in the city wherever that is built.
But the convener Councillor Ian Perry said that the small site at Telferton would not materially add to the housing supply in the city. Councillor Bagshaw said that while both sides had argued their case very well the benefits of allotments to the local community must be paramount.
The benefits of allotments are obvious in social, physical and emotional terms, and these benefits are also promoted by the council in a report on allotments across the city. There is a huge waiting list (up to 9 years in places) for council-owned allotments in the city.
We shall wait to see whether the developer appeals the decision.
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