Moredun protesters echo council policy on parks – John McLellan

Badge of honour or Sword of Damocles, the city council’s promise to build 10,000 affordable homes in five years, 20,000 in ten, was always wildly ambitious and was well off schedule even before the Covid-19 crisis halted all construction work.

The onus it puts on officers to hit the target means there is pressure to squeeze as much housing as possible onto land the council controls and at Meadowbank, for example, the original density was only reduced because of public concern.

And public concern was in full view last week at Moredun, where locals from the nearby high-rise flats prevented a survey of open parkland at Moredunvale which the authority earmarked for housing development over seven years ago.

In 2013 when the site was included in the proposed development plan, the idea was to develop half the site and improve the rest, but in the meantime the blueprint for the Bioquarter across the road has acquired a large housing element, so Moredunvale could soon be one of the few large publicly available open spaces in the immediate area.

The next development plan is about to be finalised and the document which underpins it, Choices 2030, is very instructive when it comes to sites like this.

“We want to develop and maintain a city-wide network of high quality and beautiful multi-use green spaces,” it says, in order to “increase our health and well-being, encourage more walking, cycling and sport, address climate change, have a positive impact on biodiversity and air quality, manage the water environment and create opportunities for food growing.” It sounds very like the arguments made by Moredun campaigners last week.

But crucially, it adds this: “We want to introduce a new ‘extra-large green space standard’ which recognises the need for new communities to have access to green spaces more than five hectares.” So against this background, why is the Council developing a plan which, at the very least, will significantly reduce the kind of large park its own policies seek to preserve and enhance?

The answer appears to be a clash of a policy based on a throwaway line for political purposes and lacking rigour with another more carefully considered approach.

That is only one contradiction. Readers of this column may remember another planning controversy last week when permission was set to be refused for a charity to build 11 homes for people needing significant care and their families. The homes were to be built on the site of a car park, across the road from some houses, right next to the City Bypass and 150 metres away from a centre for disabled people with complex needs.

Rejection was on the basis that, being on the wrong side of the Bypass, it represented development of the Green Belt, so at the same time as the authority was ploughing on with plans to dig up a park, it was intent on throwing out a small scheme to help people in dire need because of an environmental policy.

The Council will point to the fact that housing policy and planning rules are not the same thing and any housing development at Moredun would still need to go through planning. But anyone who thinks the planning committee would reject a council housing scheme must have come down the Forth on a water biscuit. Interestingly, the Conservative and Labour ward councillors for the Moredun area, Stephanie Smith and Lezley Marion Cameron, are both supporting the local opposition, but so far the two SNP councillors have been quiet. Why would that be?

Here’s another line from Choices 2030: “We want to work with local communities... highlighting the key elements of design, layout, open space, biodiversity net gain and community infrastructure development should deliver.”

Old mine-working might yet scupper the Moredun plan, but it would be easier just to rule it out.

John McLellan is a Scottish Conservative councillor for Craigentinny/Duddingston

A message from the Editor

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

In order for us to continue to provide high quality and trusted local news on this free-to-read site, I am asking you to also please purchase a copy of our newspaper.

Our journalists are highly trained and our content is independently regulated by IPSO to some of the most rigorous standards in the world. But being your eyes and ears comes at a price. So we need your support more than ever to buy our newspapers during this crisis.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our local valued advertisers - and consequently the advertising that we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you helping us to provide you with news and information by buying a copy of our newspaper.

Thank you

Joy Yates

Editorial Director