Leith locals have hit out at plans to build a five-storey block of flats in the car park of an Edinburgh hotel which they say will “tower over” their properties.
The car park outside the Malmaison hotel could be transformed into a 19-unit, five storey apartment block, in terms of a planning application lodged by Northern Irish company SC Leith Limited. The plans show that the windows of several houses would be just metres away from another block of flats. The application was lodged on 15 January and is awaiting assessment on the planning portal.
Plans were submitted to the council for consideration in January. Similar proposals were submitted years ago and refused to the delight of residents.
James Browne, 33, said he worries about privacy.
He said: “I’ve got a two-year-old daughter, if it’s going ahead this year, next year, she’s going to have onlookers into her bedroom.
“We’re going to have to get blinds too, and some kind of blinds to allow sunlight as well.”
He walked down the hall to a window facing the car park, and pointed out where the building would be – next to a low wall a few metres away from the block he lives in.
Mr Browne also questioned how construction staging would work, with the streets around the site already incredibly constrained.
Pensioner John Stevenson, another resident in the block, said he is concerned about the disruption and that the development will block out daylight.
He, too, said he was worried about people seeing in to his home. He said: “I’m worried. It’s a new development that will be looking right in.”
Mr Stevenson lives on the ground floor, meaning the five storey building will tower above his property.
The new building will be built beside gardens to the west of the existing block.
Several locals worried that the shadow from the neighbouring building would cause a kind of obstruction – and one noted that the new development would have gardens of its own.
Advertising consultant Tony Harding, who moved to the block in 1999, said that many locals relied on the gardens for their mental health and a sense of relaxation.
He added: “Why is it alright for us to lose our garden for them to get theirs? Leith doesn’t need 19 new flats.”
Harding added that the plans had first been submitted years ago, when the area was less dense and the local character was different.
The developers of the project did not respond to a request for comment.
By Joseph Sullivan Local Democracy Reporter
