Kingsford Developments have effectively won their appeal to develop 154 McDonald Rd as flats.
Campaigners against the plan have reacted with consternation and bitter disappointment. ‘To say we’re gutted is an understatement,’ says Sandra Bagnall.
Kingsford Developments were initially refused planning permission on 6 November 2013 (Breaking news, 6.11.13). On 21 November, they lodged an appeal on the perfectly legitimate grounds that City of Edinburgh Council (CEC) had failed formally to tell them of that decision within the statutory timeframe (Breaking news, 3.12.13).
This strikes many as, at best, an appalling failure on CEC’s part to competently administer its own process. If such failure is for whatever reason systemic, critics across the city wonder whether a Planning department which can't begin to enact its own decisions has any point.
Spurtle is interested to know what changes have been made in the department since this administrative breakdown, and whether any disciplinary measures have been taken. We will report back on that.
Planning’s shortcomings here have resulted in locals' engagement, and the careful consideration of elected representatives on the Development Management subcommittee, effectively counting for nothing. That is very bad for local democracy.
But it’s a situation which has also brought about the Council bureaucracy’s desired outcome in an urgent financial crisis: the profitable sale of supposedly redundant estate. That convenient coincidence of pre-existing policy and short-term blunder does nothing to maintain confidence in CEC’s fair play.
Some even scent a non-specific sulphurous pong.
Regardless of these general points, members of the Broughton Primary School community now have more pressing concerns. Sandra Bagnall – who helped voice protests against No. 154 as flats and for its retention as a publicly owned educational resource – says with heavy irony:
We can now enjoy building work on the school itself, in the playground for the modular classrooms, to the rear of the school (family housing) and now right next door to us at 154 ... and look forward to overcrowding for the foreseeable future. The Council should be ashamed of the whole debacle.
The Scottish Government Reporter's notice of intention and his reasons for it are available as a pdf below. Analysis will follow.