It is evident from your account of the proposed hotel developments in the Edinburgh High Street (your report, 7 February ) that, while many consider them contrary to good conservation principles, our planners appear to ignore planning objections an
d focus on securing big inward investments. The same approach is being used to promote business interests on the left side of Old Dalkeith Road, running south from the new ERI to almost the city boundary. This land was once Green Belt, but that is no longer the case. Beyond the new Biomedical Research site already started, all the land is now designated as for business use and scheduled for biomedical research businesses, right up to the former Edmonstone Estate at the top of the hill. Here the land amazingly, retains its Green Belt status, but permission has been given for a 80-bed private hospital to be built in the centre, close to the fine woodland on Edmonstone Ridge. This entails constructing access roads with car parking facilities embedded into the woodland. Now a planning application is due to be heard for a 100-bed private care-home to be built nearby, within the remarkable large Walled Garden (dated 1809). It is impossible to argue that these developments are in any way justifiable on Green Belt sites. Furthermore this area is also designated as a Local Nature Conservation Site, and as such is already suffering from site preparation work.
The full article contains 248 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
