Planning

Yesterday, councillors on the Planning Committee voted to take forward draft non-statutory guidance on purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) for public consultation. 

An important aim is to protect the health and wellbeing of students by ensuring that Edinburgh’s PBSA is of good quality and built in the right places. However, this is balanced by a second aim which is to provide new residential dwellings for non-students. All new housing should not negatively affect the existing character and community of the surrounding area.

Council proposals for new housing on the former Powderhall waste-transfer site at 165 Broughton Rd have temporarily stalled.

Two key applications have been withdrawn.

Following a second round of public consultations in late November, we await with interest a new planning application from Ediston and Orion Capital Managers to develop the site bounded by Dundas Street, Eyre Place, King George V Park and Fettes Row/Royal Crescent.

We expect to see latest proposals for the New Town Quarter later this month.

Local resident, playwright, poet and Edinburgh's first makar Stewart Conn has lived alongside the disruptive demolition here since work began in 2022.

ECF Omni SARL seeks planning consent for a new entrance portal for the OMNi Centre, internally lit signage, external lighting and partial levelling of some stepped access.

The OMNi hospitality and leisure complex was bought by Triple B from Nuveen in April 2024. This proposal is the most visible element of policies to restore the OMNi to pre-Covid levels of popularity and profitability.

Strange goings-on in Marshall's Court 

It may be a cock-up. It may be a conspiracy. Or it may just be the perfectly normal processes of local government seen through a glass darkly. 

Nothing is ever entirely obvious when it comes to Edinburgh’s Licensing.

We’ll try and clarify what is a complex story, but be warned: as dark glasses go, this one is pure Guinness.

Councillors have refused planning consent for the proposal  by CSG Projects Ltd to build a 5-bedroom family home on Blenheim Place (24/01889/FUL). 

They said the proposal would have a detrimental impact on the character and appearance of the site and would disrupt key views in the New Town Conservation Area.

St Stephen’s Theatre Company seeks listed building consent to install photovoltaic solar panels on the roof of its Stockbridge headquarters (24/05221/LBC).

Anyone who has experienced the noise, anxiety and expense of fixing a roof will feel a pang of sympathy for the Property Committee at St Mary’s Catholic Cathedral. The B-listed building’s Sacristy and Chancel (South Aisle) require major work to stop rain entering and causing further damage and collapsed ceilings below. 

This programme of restoration and replacement is now the subject of applications for planning permission and listed building consent submitted to the Council at the end of last month.

Work on 1–3 Canon Street appears to be progressing well, with the new roof taking shape in damp conditions yesterday.

Thistle Property Group's plans to redevelop Canon House and build new housing behind it (18/07826/FUL) were granted planning permission in 2018, with minor variations made to the proposal since.

Here’s what it looks like along Eyre Place just now …

Following in-person and online discussions with the public which began in September 2022, engineering and design consultants Stantec have updated plans to reconfigure the Powderhall Junction.

The preferred option aims to improve safe and inclusive connectivity and to encourage active travel through the intersection of McDonald Rd, Broughton Road, St Mark’s Path and the entrance to the future housing development.

Features of the final design include:

• advanced stop lines and maximised approach lanes for cyclists