Breaking news

In the current controversies surrounding use and development of Edinburgh’s public spaces, particularly green spaces, it is sometimes tempting to think we live uniquely in a time of moral slippage and civic decline. 

How much better it would be if we could return to a more decorous period, when people knew how to behave and the city’s parks were places of sacrosanct amenity.

Today, Spurtle looks back and basks in the glow of Princes Street Gardens’ 19th-century golden age.

The following brief statement from Police Scotland was received at lunchtime today. 

We reproduce it unedited and in full. 

About 7.40am on Tuesday 22 October 2019 the body of a female was found in the King George V Park, Eyre Place, Edinburgh.

Enquiries into the circumstances surrounding the death are ongoing and the death is being treated at unexplained at this stage.

A report will be submitted to the Procurator Fiscal.

A new tree survey in St Andrew Square Gardens recommends a thoroughgoing removal of deadwood, and additional enhancement of the soil environment. 

Doing so will require expanding the soil management budget. 

An article in Saturday’s Scotsman prompted a massive reaction on social media over the weekend. 
 
Furious residents responded to the article’s opening paragraph: ‘Council chiefs in Edinburgh have ruled out imposing a cap on the number of events staged in Princes Street Gardens – as the city’s status as a world-leading cultural capital would be put at risk.’ 

Friends of Pilrig Park and their allies object in the strongest possible terms to another proposal to site the Ladyboys of Bangkok/La Clique cabarets in Pilrig Park for 30 days next summer.  

Writing to the Council, they oppose permitting or licensing these events here. Their reasons include:

A second public consultation about plans for the former RBS site between Dundas Street and King George V Park has been postponed. 

The New Town North PAN exhibition had been scheduled for 17 October. It will now take place in Broughton St Mary’s Parish Church on Thursday 5 December, from noon till 8pm.

Resurfacing of the carriageway between Pilrig Street and Broughton Primary School is scheduled to begin tomorrow. 

If all goes according to plan, work will start at 7.00pm and finish at 6.00am every weekday night until 19 October.

Sections of Broughton Road will be closed to through traffic (except emergency vehicles and pedestrians) during working hours, but will reopen in the mornings.

Phase 1, lasting four nights, will run from Pilrig Street to North Pilrig Heights.

Royal Bank of Scotland seeks planning consent for internal and external changes to its NatWest premises at 8 George Street (Ref. 19/04619/FUL). 

The changes include removal of NatWest signage and cash machines. However, a spokesperson emphasised to Spurtle this morning that a NatWest presence will continue in the city centre:

An autograph book, compiled between 1897 and 1933 and containing the signatures of roughly 300 historic celebrities, will be sold on 9 October to raise funds for Poppy Scotland. 

The collection contains monickers and messages by ‘leaders in every sphere of thought and actions – Great Politicians, Scientists, Authors, Preachers, Musicians, Actors, Explorers, Philosophers, Painters, Captains of Industry &c &c.’ 

KEASIM Events Limited seeks temporary planning consent for the erection of a festival village on the roof of the Waverley Mall this winter (Refs 19/03943/FUL; 19/03872/LBC). 

In other words, Malone’s on the Mall etc. – Edinburgh’s answer to a Gold Rush shanty town – is angling to return.