New Portobello High School - on going issues

[Porty]

The park and golf course are what 56 acres? So there's 10000 people taken care of! And there's only about 125 properties overlook the park. When I feel a bit better and struggle back into work. I will dig out the park sizes. Why did Ewan Aitken specify the catchmemt as being the relevant area. , I know it seems obvious butis he right to do so?

[seanie]

Different types of space serve different sizes of population and so different sizes of area. So while so many acres per 1000 might be a useful rule of thumb an Open Space audit is more complicated.

Just take the beach for example. Under planning policies it should be part of any audit, but how do you measure its accessibility? In some respects its very accesssible but in other ways it's not.

[seanie]

Same with the golf-course I suppose.

[Porty]

With you. So if one of our open spazes was a military establishment and theefore had severly restricted public access it would count little.

[Porty]

Surely accessibility could. Be assesed by current usage. At least to an an extent. I mean both the beach and golf course are werl used. I rarely use the former and never use the latter but I coils access them no bother. So if as claimed 30012 use the course each year there's little reason why that couldn't be 50000. Point being our parks and leisure spaces must surely rank high on accessibility, even if hardly anyone uses them.

[seanie]

Possibly. But such an area might be viewed as of importance in longer-term strategic terms or in terms of ecology/bio-diversity etc. so it might still be viewed as quite important in that context although not in terms of public use.

One of the difficulties is that the term Open Space covers such a wide variety of things, including potential rather than actual use. There might be a scabby bit of land somewhere that isn't publicly accessible but potentially could be, so it should be audited as well.

[seanie]

Accessibility, use and potential use are all different things though and you should probably give consideration to all three. And at the end of the day it'll be open to interpretation. You won't be able to reduce it to a formula.

[seanie]

Sportscotland used to (and probably still do) take the view that any bit of land of sufficient size and suitability that could accomodate a pitch, should be included in any assessment of pitch provision regardless of whether there is a pitch on it or not. Obviously there's value in protecting for future use but as a policy it can get a bit convoluted.

When is a pitch not a pitch?

[Porty]

It sounds like a bit of a minefield - which sport Scotland would include no doubt. I do think, perhaps mistakenly, that existing parks and leisure spaces are open space. I can accept the debate about marginal bits of land but existing parks would have to be declassified - doesn't sound right. We could get quite a lot of beach football pitches on the beach!

[seanie]

Exisiting parks are open space but they can differ in accessibility and use, a case in point being Portobello Park. It's a big area of Open Space in total but how does it rank in terms of accessibility and usage? I'd think actual usage, given it's size, is relatively low but does that count for or against the proposal to locate the school on the pitches? There are two ways of looking at that, in planning terms, that are both logically valid but also mutually exclusive.

There are inherent contradictions within Planning Policy relating to Open Space. That, in itself, isn't so suprising since there are inevitably contradictions between different policies anyway. But it makes the Planning issues less than clear cut either way.

[Porty]

[SoupDragon]

[Porty]

[seanie]

[Bob Jefferson]

Diana Cairns has a letter in today's EN (4th letter down):

[Porty]

It is not even worth commenting on.

[Porty]

[seanie]

[Pal of Porty]

[Porty]

[Porty]

[seanie]

There's no definition, I'm aware of, as to what area should be considered. In planning terms it's a matter of judgement.

As for the park & golfcourse, they're certainly significant in size so may result in overprovision depending on the wider area considered. But that in turn raises the question of whether 'overprovision' is to be judged merely in terms of area, or whether use, accessibility etc are also factors to be considered. Again there's no definiton, that I'm aware of, as to what constitutes 'significant overprovision'.

These are terms open to interpretation.

I think the drawing from the consulation gives a reasonable guide to how much space the school would take. With the school occupying 4.5Ha there wouldn't be any difficulty in leaving two full size grass pitches , about 1.2Ha, publicly accessible outside the boundary.

However you could get away with less than 4.5Ha. In the feasibility studies they managed to squeeze the same nominal facilities onto the combined PHS/St Johns site at 3.5Ha. You'd want to look closer at how well that would work, but if you replicated that footprint
up on the park it would leave about 2.2Ha of public park. You could fit four full size pitches on that, more than what's there at present.

[Porty]

Ok thanks I appreciate its not formulaic. Returning to replaceme t green space. Fron your previous posts and experience; am I correct in thinking that the 4.5ha used by the school is the nominal amount of land to be replaced? But it does not need to be replaced exactli in terms of size? Usage and quality are key considerations?

[seanie]

[Porty]

[seanie]

[Porty]

[seanie]

I've noticed a tendency to 'read with a broad brush'.

[seashell]

[seanie]

[Porty]

[Bob Jefferson]

[seanie]

[Bob Jefferson]

[Porty]