New Town

March 2024. A pleasant spring afternoon in Moray Place. A hint of peat smoke in the air. The vaguest scent of sewage drifting from the Water of Leith below.

I wait outwith a southern entrance to the central garden to meet a man I know only as ‘The  Convenor’. He is an office bearer in one of Edinburgh’s oldest and most exclusive private discutentative associations: the Quinquaginta Club.

On 17 March, councillors on the Development Management Subcommittee granted permission for the police box on Heriot Row to operate as a coffee and food sale point (20/02262/FUL).

So ended a planning issue which has divided parts of the Second New Town for over nine months.

The decision was explained as follows: