Watchdogs in fight to save 'ugly' office block

HERITAGE watchdogs are battling to save an office block branded one of Edinburgh's ugliest buildings.

Campaigners are fighting a bid to demolish the former Lothian Regional Council headquarters on the corner of the Royal Mile and George IV Bridge to make way for a new hotel complex.

They describe the planned hotel as a "charmless container ship" totally unsuitable for Edinburgh's World Heritage Site.

Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBoS) also plans to create restaurants, bars, shops and a bank on the site. Award-winning city architect Allan Murray was commissioned to design the scheme, which the bank hopes would be completed by 2008.

City council leader Donald Anderson had insisted that the "horrible" 1960s building is replaced as a condition of the sale of the site by the local authority. HBoS is thought to have paid the council more than £7m for the land.

But Mr Murray's scheme is being opposed by both the Edinburgh World Heritage Trust and the Edinburgh Old Town Association, two heavyweight heritage organisations.

A spokesman for the World Heritage Trust said: "We expect to see a design that is outstanding but also in context, rather than something which is acceptable only because it improves on the existing building."

He added: "The way in which the glass, stone and timber panels are used seems to emphasise this as a standard modern interpretation of hotel or bank design. It could be anywhere rather than in the heart of the historic Old Town of Edinburgh."

Rosemary Mann, convener of the Edinburgh Old Town Association, said: "The new designs are certainly no improvement on the existing building.

"In the case of demolition, only the best will do for this prominent site in the heart of Edinburgh and we do not think the proposed building is good enough. The designs look like a charmless container ship."

Mr Murray spent more than a year working on the plans, which include a number of entrances into the complex, as well as an archway on to Victoria Terrace.

Full planning permission for the site has yet to be granted, and the Old Town Association and World Heritage Trust are preparing to object.

A spokesman for HBoS said the bank hoped that the scheme would create a dignified new building which makes the streetscape more in keeping with its surroundings.