The council wants Granton to become a leading example in sustainable development in its goal to become a net zero carbon city by 2030.
Plans for a £1.3billion development which includes 3,500 homes, of which just over a third will be affordable homes, a cultural quarter, the iconic gasometer, commercial and retail space alongside cultural attractions and a coastal park linking Granton Harbour to Gypsy Brae are now making their way through the council process. The council will commit over time around £200 million of funding to the affordable housing alone and will work with other partners like The Scottish Government to put forward a case for Granton.
The outline proposal will be considered next week at the Policy and Strategy Committee in the next stage of the process to create a whole new eco-friendly area on the city’s largest brownfield site.
One of the ‘meanwhile’ projects includes a proposal that the council will in conjunction with students from Edinburgh College light up the gasometer. The council has promised £100,000 to this and is continuing to seek additional funding to make this happen.
Council Leader Adam McVey said this is going to be an exciting phase. He said : “Just getting it animated as a visual space is already going to start underpinnning what comes next. We have already had so many discussions about the multitude of options for it.”
Tomorrow an exhibition with details of the proposals will open at Edinburgh College at 4.00pm to 7.00pm and will run until 6 March 2020.
The Granton Waterfront Development Frameworkhas been developed in partnership with other organisations in the area such as Edinburgh College. National Museums Scotland and National Galleries Scotland have buildings in the area which they use for storage and archives, and they have committed to some collaboration with the council. The council leader said this is going to be a huge draw for members of the public. He explained : “It will feel like a kind of cultural asset. It will not feel like a museum archive.”
A major part of the plan is to create a new coastal park where Edinburgh will look north rather than inwards to the city centre. The area will offer more leisure and outdoor activity, but also this will be exemplar city design built on sustainability and climate resilience.
There will be little car park provision and instead this area will have improved and sustainable public transport links, with the possibility of an extension to the tramline.
The Depute Leader of the Council Cammy Day has a particular interest in this project as he represents the ward in the North of the city. He flagged up to us some of the exciting things that will happen this year – although the timeline for the whole project is somewhat longer. It may well take a decade for this to come to fruition.
Cllr Day explained : “This puts forward a plan for investing in Granton Waterfront developing thousands of new homes including affordable homes,
“In the coming months we will light up the gasometer with some help from Edinburgh College students.That will be a beacon that says Granton is open for business. We will be taking this plan with us to MIPIM in March to promote it to people interested in investing in the city. I hope it evidences a need for better public transport in the form of the final part of the tram line 1(b). It will bring a huge mix to that part of the city which has lain empty for a decade or more.
“We have put aside money from the Town Centre Fund to redevelop the Caroline Park Railway Station right in front of the Scottish Gas building. That was part of the purchase that the council made.”
There are around 700 homes under construction already with a selection of meanwhile projects which could yet come to life such as the Urban Wind Turbine Pilot, the Beach Box Granton using shipping containers on the shoreline to provide affordable space for cafés, an Adventure Playground for children to learn outdoors in collaboration with Edinburgh College and Forthside Festival which will use the open space at Gypsy Brae for a range of outdoor activities.
One of the benefits of this development is the job creation which will follow from it, both in terms of construction jobs and also the new businesses starting up in the incubator space in the former Caroline Park Station.
It was two years ago that the council bought the former gas works from National Grid which provides around 120 acres for the housing led regeneration project.
The Council will shortly be bringing forward plans for an initial phase of development at Western Villages ahead of the wider transformation. Proposals for the development of around 400 new homes for sale and rent in the area will be out for consultation in Spring 2020.
The papers for the Policy and Strategy committee meeting are here
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