Environment

WET WEATHER AND DRY WIT: Redbraes and Brandon Terrace this afternoon.

GREEN SIDE:—Greenside Place, Calton Hill, St Mary's RC Cathedral.

Have you ever wondered about these paviours?

They skirt the northern and western sides of the inner footway outside Drummond Place Garden, and many examples have a peculiar blue-ish hue. The words read:

TEES SCORIA BRICK CO.

PATENT

One Joseph Wharton of Darlington patented a machine for making bricks, tiles, &c. from molten blast furnace slag (scoria) in 1877. They had the advantage of being tough, waterproof, and resistant to chemicals.

Much heavy traffic, including buses, has been diverted along Leopold Pl during Leith Walk tramworks. The resulting damage to the carriageway is causing troublesome vibration for residents.

Living at the border of both community council areas and Council wards, these locals have had trouble gaining the attention of officials.

Their homes are in Leith Walk ward, but the road outside is in the City Centre. Neither the Tram Team nor the Council’s Diversion Team have been keen to tackle the problem.

Standard Life Aberdeen’s ‘Giving Back to Green Spaces’ project has chosen Hopetoun Crescent Garden as one of four pilot schemes to increase local bio-diversity, regenerate park areas, and increase community engagement.

Friends of Hopetoun Crescent Garden (FHCG) will receive a grant plus support from a business mentor and potentially some ‘volunteers-day’ assistance.

The Friends will work with Edinburgh City Council, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, and other organisations such as the Woodland Trust to maximise this opportunity.

Friends of King George V Park and Scotland Yard Parks seek new committee members to play an active role in protecting and improving these treasured spaces at the heart of our community.

‘You could be a user of social media and boost the profile of the park,’ says longstanding stalwart and secretary Judy Conn. ‘You could be involved in ongoing interactions with the Council and/or the New Town Quarter developers.

Warriston Cemetery often throws up surprises, but few remember finding something quite like this before.

The regeneration of George Street’s public realm has entered a new phase with the launch of a final Concept Design. The plans are available for scrutiny on the Council website here (use the menu toggle top-right for more detail). There’s a virtual helicopter ride here.

The proposals are budgeted at £32M, with £20M coming from Transport Scotland via Sustrans.

Suggestions are sought for historic buildings and neighbourhoods needing regeneration in the World Heritage Site and adjacent Conservation Areas (in blue below).

Selected properties will benefit under Edinburgh World Heritage’s three-year Conservation Funding Programme (2022–25), which is backed by Historic Environment Scotland.

Professor Cliff Hague, Chairman of the Cockburn Association, delivered the heritage watchdog’s annual lecture last night on Zoom.

His theme was the Frankenstein’s monster that is festivalisation – in particular, Edinburgh’s monstrous creation that has grown too big for the laboratory and now threatens to ruin the very apparatus that gave it birth.

Well, that was this viewer’s expectation. Instead, what emerged was a calm, forensic account of how the Festivals and Fringe emerged in the city and grew to their current proportions.