Breaking news

 DIGITAL DISPLAY PLAN ADJACENT TO PAOLOZZI PALM 

Some observers regard the proposed reshuffling of Paolozzi’s ‘Manuscript of Monte Cassino’ as an ill-conceived guddle: a half-baked compromise in the Picardy Place re-design. 

Trevor Davies, formerly Edinburgh Council's Planning Convener  (2003–2007) and now  Honorary Professor of Urban Studies at Glasgow University, has been rather quiet of late about Picardy Place. Today, he breaks his silence. 

Let’s take a step back 

It is Edinburgh’s topography, its built heritage and its status as capital city that have attracted the skills and learning and investment which together make our city prosperous and of worldwide renown.

 CEC TO OPEN INFORMAL DISCUSSIONS WITH PARENTS 

City of Edinburgh Council will begin informal discussions with parent councils next month about whether to move Gaelic Medium Education (GME) from James Gillespie’s High School to Drummond Community High School.

Pushing the proposal is the fact that Gillespie’s is projected to have 1,537 pupils in 2021, but a capacity for only 1,300. In the same year, Drummond is projected to have 418 pupils with a capacity for 600.

Following their inaugural meeting on 29 November, opponents of the Council’s proposed Picardy Place gyratory have issued a manifesto. 

The two-page document aims to inform people across Edinburgh, and provides links and addresses to facilitate their response to the Council consultation which ends on Friday 15 December. 

The Picardy Group’s reasons for opposing the gyratory are briefly:

 COUNCIL RECONSIDERS COMMUNAL BIN COLLECTIONS 

City of Edinburgh Council is poised to review communal bin collections and to trial new arrangements in a bid to improve the widely criticised uplift of landfill and recyclable waste. 

The CEC response is (neatly) contained within a report which will go before the Transport and Environment Committee on Thursday. 

The proposal to build ten ‘beautifully crafted’ homes in a back-green-carpark behind Claremont Crescent has been refused planning permission (Ref. 13/03603/FUL). 

As reported here in August, the two-storey micro-dwellings would have ranged in size from 38.4 sq.m to 40.5 sq.m, but this spatial economy was within regulations and not a cause to withhold consent. 

Who doesn't love Edinburgh at this time of year?

This season of melancholy greys and seeping chill. 

Ten minutes from the crowds on Princes Street, ten minutes from St Andrew Square and George Street, one has time to think. 

Things are quieter down here, less maddening. 

One has time to reflect on skies of Arctic blue …

Spurtle’s Issue 269 comes out in December and will be the last until February, straddling the New Year period like a huge but elegant new road bridge with only a few piddling surface issues which it’s hardly worth mentioning despite the fact that in time they may cause the entire edifice to collapse. So we won’t. 

Page 1 is mostly about the dizzying spin that is Picardy Place, although we also find room for a desirable dragon and make confident predictions about what Leithers will be arguing about in 2018.

Activists, stakeholders and concerned locals opposed to the City of Edinburgh Council’s latest plans for Picardy Place will meet this evening. 

The idea is to establish priorities and discuss the best way to promote practical alternatives to the current proposal on offer in advance of the Transport and Environment Committee meeting on 15 January.

This is a closed, planning meeting. Further details will follow. For information, contact: picardygroup@gmail.com