The city’s planning and building standards service is still very much in business. With officers working from home and keeping in touch by MS Teams and Skype, they are processing all the planning applications for developments in the city.
That can range from new housing developments to knocking a wall down in your home.
And the Planning Convener, Cllr Neil Gardiner, was keen that we and our readers would know exactly what is happening and how it all works. So we invited him on to our podcast to chat about the work that the planning officers, and elected members are involved in.
Cllr Gardiner said: “We do fully recognise the important of keeping things moving. There’s thousands of people employed in the construction sector. The trickle down effect of this is that it is an important bit of our economy. It is important that we do everything we can to keep things going, and that we have democratic oversight too.”
As an architect he is very well placed for leading the Planning Committee who decide all the applications. He has now been part of the process from both sides.
There are two committees which meet – the Development Management Sub-Committee which decides bigger planning matters, and the Local Review Body (LRB) which deals with local and householder applications. The LRB has not ever been shown on the council’s webcast, and so it is a first that this body now meets and makes its decisions entirely in public.
Cllr Gardiner shared with us the news of some new ideas around the Waverley Valley. He is keen to promote the idea of an overall strategy for that rectangular area between the Bridges and Lothian Road, roughly bounded by Princes Street and the railway line, and which includes Princes Street Gardens.
The council has already relaxed some policy to allow for new ideas for Princes Street, which he describes as ‘the city’s foremost street’. He wants to set out, with the help of residents and others with an interest in the city centre, an overall plan of what this area will look like and be used for. The sad fact is that riding on the top deck of a double decker bus you see all sorts of rooms and buildings with a fabulous view out to the gardens which is under-used.
You will hear in our podcast Cllr Gardiner explain that he wants buildings and businesses make better use of the view here. He said: “What the city needs to do is that as the council we represent Civic Edinburgh. All the players wanting to do something in this space will think of their own needs. We have to think of the citizens, and say what the city needs in a more proactive way. We can then tell organisations who want to do something there what our citizens want. I think it would be helpful to have more guidance about what the city is really looking for.”
He also mentions that there are hopes and dreams of a new Architecture Centre, and that this might pop up in a building such as the City Art Centre. Cllr Gardiner sits on the Architecture Working Group along with Edinburgh architect, Rab Bennetts. The group is looking at ways of setting out some possibilities for Edinburgh, but the Planning Convener is adamant that this will have to reflect the needs of those who live here. He said: “We don’t always have the best ideas, so we have to have a space where we can discuss all the possibilities with others.”
We talked about the City Plan 2030 which was the subject of an extended consultation earlier in the year. A new revised timetable for this will be published later this summer. There were 1800 responses to the draft plan and over 1 million impressions online, showing the level of interest in all things planning in the capital. This will enable the council to absorb all the responses into one development plan within which future applications will have to fit.
Place briefs such as that for Halmyre Street have been extended for resident and stakeholder views so that they can eventually incorporate local needs into future plans.
The BioQuarter is also an exciting development where people will live and work in the same area, with businesses like life sciences and medical research featuring in the mix. Investment in this area of the city has been huge. Over £500 million has already been invested by the University of Edinburgh, NHS Lothian, Scottish Enterprise and the council. This public funding will, it is hoped, lead to further investment from the private sector of another £300 million. There will be an estimated 9,000 new jobs in the BioQuarter, which will be a really important area after the pandemic is at an end.
There will be a search for a private partner to help develop this area in due course to produce a new mixed-use neighbourhood where people will live, study and work. There will be a fly through soon showing what the development will perhaps look like. There will also be a public consultation in due course.
Even now, the site is home to some cutting edge research with STOPCOVID a rapid interception experimental medicine programme into Covid-19 respiratory failure. This is led by the Centre for Inflammation Research in the Queen’s Medical Research Institute at Bioquarter.
Listen to our podcast here:
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
