Breaking news

City of Edinburgh Council aims to create at least 16,000 affordable and low-cost homes by investing £2 billion over ten years.

This is the most eye-catching target in a nine-point strategy being consulted upon by CEC’s Health, Social Care and Housing Committee at the moment.

It comes as work begins on the major residential development at Shrubhill , where some 236 affordable homes will be built, thanks in part to CEC investment using loans guaranteed by the Scottish Government’s National Housing Trust.

Duddingston House Properties and the Urbanist Group have come forward with revised proposals for the old Royal High School and a proposal of application notice (PAN). A full application will follow in 12 weeks at the earliest. 

First, however, the plans – which many expect to comprise a drastically scaled-down version of the earlier luxury hotel scheme – will be the subject of a pre-application consultation (PAC) on a date to be agreed between 1st and 3rd November from 3pm-7pm at the old Royal High School itself.

Matt Donovan and Hallie Siegel are collaborating Canadian artists whose work now appears at Edinburgh Printmakers and outside EP’s forthcoming new home at the Castle Mill Works on Gilmore Park.

The exhibition – History Machines – foregrounds the physical presence of text: the effect on understanding of its manufacture, style, composition, manipulation, replication, and decomposition.

Yesterday's piece on serious traffic congestion in Edinburgh's East End touched a raw nerve (Breaking news, 13.9.16; see foot of page). 

Our Facebook post alone has reached nearly 95,000 people since this time (4.30pm) yesterday, and the total is still rising.

Today, we approached City of Edinburgh Council and asked for a statement on:

If you find yourself caught up in slow-moving East End traffic over the next few days, here are 15 possible explanations. 

We found them on the Council’s helpful EdinTravel page.

1. St Andrew Square, south side 

Redevelopment of 3–8 St Andrew Square. Lane and footway closures. Other ad hoc arrangements as required for removal of spoil, delivery of materials etc.

South leg of Square closed 1.06.16–23.10.16.

THE BALLAD OF DUNDAS STREET 

I settle into the window seat and watch as a light drizzle attempts to motivate late afternoon. 

Behind me, the clang and hiss of my order makes a brief, unsuccessful, attempt to enliven this sedate New Town coffee shop. 

The rain becomes a downpour, pooling on metallic tables and undulating pavements. Large umbrellas are unfurled, anoraks dived into. For a moment, Dundas Street displays the energetic grace of a late summer regatta. 

For our next Edinburgh safari, we’re leaving the realms of everyday beasties and going all mythological. 

Not for us, though, your run-of-the-mill dragons and workaday phoenixes. We want hybrids joining two or more distinct creatures together in a kind of alternative capital coalition. 

If you can identify where the beasties below were found, let us know. If you can find further instances – send us the photos for your chance to win lasting fame. 

Warriston Post Office in Brandon Terrace has closed. 

But locals still mourning the loss of the London Street and Newhaven Road POs, the loss of the handily late posting box at Brunswick Road sorting office and the removal of the St James PO to the distant reaches of Princes Mall can breathe a sigh of relief. 

Warriston will only remain closed for a week during refurbishment, and will have longer opening hours when it reopens.

Scottish Government reporters have today granted a sist (a legal delay) to the appeals by Duddingston House Properties (DHP) and the Urbanist Group against refusal of planning permission/listed building consent for their hotel scheme at the old Royal High School. 

One doesn’t expect happy news from a cemetery, so none of what follows should come as a particular surprise. 

These researches are not intended to be intrusively morbid. They have been made in reaction to gravestone inscriptions in Rosebank Cemetery which were surely intended by relatives to trigger memory or spark interest among future generations.

In that sense, these short and melancholy stories constitute polite responses to long-standing invitations.