Breaking news

Today is a milestone in Broughton’s recent cultural history. 

When  its doors close at 6pm this evening, it will be the end of Edinburgh Printmakers’ three decades at 23 Union Street. 

Workshop, retail and gallery spaces will transfer to a new, bigger and better facility at Castle Mills in Fountainbridge. We wish all concerned an unstressful voyage and successful reberth in spring 2019. 

Judging by the content of social media over recent weeks, we’re all going to hell in a handcart. 

Edinburgh citizens are railing about the pros and cons of ever increasing tourism, the privatisation of public space, the ruin of residential amenity. It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas, with everyone bickering with everyone else in confined spaces. 

Many locals have a soft spot for Broughton Place. 

There’s a satisfying confluence to it, an odd higgledy-piggledy, tumble-down descent leading to a pool of Georgian grandeur at the bottom. 

Here, in Kirkwood’s 1819 Plan and Elevation, we see it in the years before completion, a rather charming guddle of homes, gardens, woodyards, and older structures gradually being subsumed under the New Town. 

Edinburgh Police today named the girl whose body was found on Calton Hill on 8 December. 

Fifteen-year-old Mhari O’Neill’s death is currently unexplained, and Police are asking for the public’s help. 

The Willowbrae teenager was reported missing in the early hours of Saturday, and a member of the public later found her body at 6.30am. 

Scottish Gas Networks has announced plans for a major 26-week project to replace mains along Broughton Street and two offshoots.

Phase 1 work will start on 7 January and last for 12 weeks. Broughton Street will be reduced to one lane travelling southwards (uphill) for the duration. 

Deliveries to shops on Broughton Street will be possible using the inside northbound lane. Some parking restrictions will apply on Albany Street.

Phase 2 (London Street) and Phase 3 (Forth Street) will follow, extending the project for a further 14 weeks. 

Save Leith Walk campaigners have urged locals to reject Drum Property’s revised scheme for Stead’s Place. 

As reported HERE last week, the developers have tweaked their first design, most notably by reducing the height of proposed buildings on Leith Walk by one storey. 

 SOAP AND SUCTION IN TESCO CAR PARK 

Waves Consultancy Ltd seeks planning permission to construct and operate a hand car wash and valeting service in the basement car park of Tesco, at 7 Broughton Road (Ref. 18/09592/FUL).

There’s a distinct pantomime theme to the window of Martinez Antiques just now. 

The Brandon Terrace cornucopia always surpasses itself around Christmas, and this year is fringed with theatrical lights as if for a stage performance. 

Closer scrutiny reveals the presence of a snake charmer, Aladdin, genie, and a veritable magic cave of glittering treasures. 

Visit after dark for the full enchanting effect, whilst saving yourself all the cost and inconvenience of a trip to the King’s Theatre Glasgow.

The Powderhall Railway Path Working Group met Leith Central Community Council’s Vice Chair and CEC officials from Active Travel and Housing yesterday. 

PRPWG comprises local residents keen to create a useful new East–West footway/cycle route on redundant track between Powderhall and Meadowbank. The meeting was to discuss next steps. 

 BIG TEST FOR EDINBURGH'S NEW LICENSING STRATEGY 

A planning application has been submitted on behalf of TH Real Estate to build a single-storey extension to the Omni Centre (Ref. 18/10093/FUL).