Planning Latest
PLEASE READ THIS UPDATE newsletter
This statement has been issued by Ian Carter (Secretary) and Ray Footman (Chairman*) on behalf of the Committee of the Blacket Association following consultations with Austin Flynn of the action group.
Thursday, 6th March 2008
The Rowans site within Blacket: prospects for the area
As most residents are probably aware, the site at the end of Alfred Place has been scheduled for redevelopment for some years, following the closure and subsequent demolition in 2005 of the old two-storey former Rowans Nursing home.
Planning permission for redevelopment of the site - following fairly robust local discussions - was granted by the City in 2000, on the basis of some 20 dwellings. These were to consist of 12 two and three-bedroom flats and 8 four-bedroom ‘penthouses’ - providing, perhaps, for around 50 or so residents - and to include underground car parking. Planning permission for this scheme, which had been prepared by Arcade Architects, remains valid, as the demolition is regarded as having started the redevelopment within the required five years.
Nothing further was heard of the plans until last November, when the Association was told, via Gilberts’ Architectural Practice, that the site’s owner, Mr Jim McDonald was proposing a revised scheme, this time with two elements. These were to be an 80-bedroom nursing home block and a residential block of 23 flats occupying some 2,300 sq. metres. Both blocks would rise to 4 flat-roofed storeys (against the 2-3 pitched-roof storeys of adjacent private housing). This scheme would, when complete, perhaps, bring on to the site some 150 residents/support staff - plus visitors and servicing agencies – with car parking for some 40 vehicles, now at surface level.
After expressions of concern about many aspects of the proposals by owners of adjoining properties and representatives of the Association at a consultative meeting with the architects in December, a residents’ action group was established, with Austin Flynn of 4 Alfred Place as Co-ordinator, to monitor and carry these discussions forward, in liaison with the Blacket Association.
Some revised plans (which still have the status of pre-planning consultative documents, rather than, necessarily, constituting any final scheme that will be submitted to the Planning Department by the owner) were then received during February.
These show the two blocks merged into one, again with a flat roof and again rising to 4 storeys. This block still incorporates a nursing home - now apparently with 74 bedrooms and 11 ‘flatlets’ – plus 28 ‘close care sheltered’ flats. There are now 46 surface car parking spaces. This, if anything, implies a further rise in the on-site person count above the estimated 150 of the last set of plans (and, of course, the 50 or so probably associated with the original scheme agreed by the Planning authorities). The action group is now awaiting a response from the architects to a request for further details of what the revised plans involve.
The view of the Association is that Blacket is a unique space within a unique City. Its ‘five streets’ of intact,19th century, exclusively stone-built residential properties, represent both Edinburgh’s first-ever villa estate and the core of the City’s first-ever Conservation Area. The site has remained substantially intact for some 130 years, with only two significant developments taking place in the 20th century – the building of the original nursing home off Alfred Place in the 1920s and, in the 1980s, the student residence, which replaced the semi-derelict original Newington House mansion, within well-wooded grounds off Blacket Avenue.
Any new construction now, off Alfred Place, will be the last element to fit within the core of the Conservation Area. It is, therefore, crucial any such development should be appropriate and consonant with the style and character of the surround- ing properties. For that reason, the Association intends to keep its members as fully briefed as possible and is encouraging all those with a direct interest to provide assistance to Austin Flynn and his group, in trying to achieve these objectives, in discussion with representatives of the developers and, perhaps, in due course, the planning authorities.
The Association has no problem with the option that a suitable nursing home, possibly combined with a related flatted element, should be located here. However that view is based on the assumption that the site is neither overdeveloped nor becomes an area where the buildings intrude upon their neighbours in such a way as materially to damage the integrity of Edinburgh’s first Conservation Area (where even minor changes to existing properties are subject to tight planning constraints). And that, of course, is a concern which has long been shared by the residents and, indeed, successive City Councils, who have sought to ensure such protection via Conservation Area status.
Against that background, the action group and the Blacket Association remain to be convinced of the acceptability of the last two sets of plans, which appear to:
- propose too large a ‘footprint’ (area of ground to be developed) on this site;
- rise to a height, and in a style of building, which is not consonant with the surrounding area;
- involve an excessive density of development and subsequent level of occupation well beyond that envisaged in the earlier planning consent scheme; and,
- abandon underground car parking and are likely to impose additional traffic and parking problems, both for the immediate neighbours and wider residential area
The Blacket Association Committee and the action group will continue to pursue these points and keep members informed of any major changes in the situation.
* At the last AGM, John Cruikshank intimated he wished to stand down as Chairman but would continue temporarily, until a successor could be appointed. At the last meeting of the Committee Ray Footman was nominated as Chairman and his appointment endorsed.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION & ACTION: contact Austin Flynn at 4 Alfred Place or by email: Austin Flynn or Ian Carter, Secretary to the Blacket Association, 12 Duncan Street or email: Ian Carter.
