Pitz/Powerleague site

[Guest]

[Hawkeye]

[ras]

[wangi]

[dccairns]

I think by the "King's Road" site he may mean the old Scottih Power site.

I agree that if there is to be housing on this site it should be high quality and of a sympathetic design, not like what's at the bottom of Bath St which sticks out like a sore thumb. But what concerns me is the proportion of housing to community use; it seems that the proposed community use (new library and community centre) are going to be shoehorned into a corner to enable the Council to make as much money as possible out of the sale of the land.

How about the Council keeping the land for Portobello and carrying out a public consultation on what we would like to see there?

[Brian McCrow]

[Maria]

[Brian McCrow]

I hope whoever made the decision on granting the 100 year lease has now resigned.

I think there is an opportunity to have a much wider debate about the way we want to develop Portobello and what is built where.

I've seen cities such as Cardiff transform themselves with a glorious Bay area.

PortyPeople need to stand up and discuss these issues now.

[john]

Am I correct that no one has yet started off a serious discussion about the council's decision to offer up for sale most of the Pitz site off Westbank Street ?

The sale particulars - while only admittedly an artist's impression - show by far most of the site being sold off to developers for private housing. Only a very narrow strip is shown as being retained by the council as the site of a possible combined library and community centre. This strip, forming the east side of the land in question, stretches from the High Street to the Promenade and the proposal shows the new community facility at the High Street end of the site, a landscaped park stretching behind it to the Promenade. There seems however to be no provision for vehicular access or delivery, only pedestrian access off the High Street. The footprint of the combined community building also seems very small.

While accepting that the layout, size and position of a suggested community facility on the site have not yet been decided by the council, they have made very important decisions which need to be discussed by the people of Portobello and the opportunity to do so is fast disappearing.

Should land which is owned by the public and used for recreation purposes
be sold off, albeit to raise money for laudible purposes - to improve community facilities ? Is this not really asset stripping ? Once the land is gone out of the public domain it is gone for ever.

Edinburgh Council yet again demonstrates a disregard of Portobello's potential as Edinburgh's seaside. Surely this prime site - between the High Street and the Promenade - could be developed as an all weather recreational facility for use by both residents of and visitors to Portobello?

Of equal importance, surely people in Portobello should get a say in what happens to this site, a site with a long history of public ownership and use?
The time scale in which to do this is fast disappearing, The site sale particulars say that offers have to be in to the council by 22nd. of December ( Are not most people thinking of other issues then ! )

Both PAS and the Community Council have w ritten to the council asking for a delay to the date by which offers have to be lodged to allow for greater public consultation. Can I suggest that Online viewers do exactly the same. The stronger the protest there is about lack of public consultation and impossible deadlines, the greater chance there is of Portobello people having a proper say in what happens to this important area of Portobello currently, but perhaps not for long, in public ownershiip.

[Guest]

Here are some links to previous threads on this subject, including contributions from both Lawrence Marshall and Maureen Child, that help to give some background to this issue:

[dccairns]

There are several concerns with this proposal to sell of the Pitz/ powerleague site.

1 There was supposed to be public consultation on this and there has not been. The land seems to be being sold off with indecent haste before we can have a proper debate on the matter. Once it has been sold, there will be no opportunity to have one and this piece of land will have been largely lost to the community. The only consultation we can have then is over a small piece of land which does not really meet the needs for which it has been set aside - it appears to have been an afterthought - the footprint for the proposed combined community centre and library is smaller than the current footprint of the community centre. There have been no feasibility studies done on the community centre or the library.

2 Another aspect to this is that the moving of the community centre plus the library actually amounts to taking vital services away from the heart of Portobello. If this happens and houses are built, this strengthens the case for the superstore developers to say that a superstore is needed on the Scottish Power site to serve these houses. The community centre and library attract people into the heart of Portobello and local shops benefit from the passing trade this generates. If these services are moved and the superstore is built, this combination of facilities at the west end of Portobello will take even more trade from the centre than the superstore alone would.

3 If this site is developed for housing it would be easier for Duddingston House Properties to tie in their superstore plans and overcome some of the urban design concerns that Councils officials have about the superstore plan. It would be a great shame if the Council, by selling off this land in this way, were to unwittingly or unintentionally facilitate the expedition of DHP's plans. If the land was sold to DHP this could be seen as a betrayal of the wishes of the Portobello community.

4 Why does this land have to be sold off for a short term gain which will benefit the community very little, the Council not much and Powerleague a lot? This land is zoned for recreational use and should be retained for the community. There are so many uses to which it could be put to create an attraction for residents and visitors alike, for example, a Portobello heritage museum or an arts centre; I'm sure that there are lots of ideas out there which could be looked at if there were to be full public consultation.

There are many more issues tied up in the sale of this site but what we can ask for is a postponement of the sale of the land to give us time to have a full debate and public consultation on the best use of the land and the implications of the sale. Ideally this should be put back till after the public inquiry into the superstore so that DHP cannot use the future development of this site as an argument in support of their case.

The closing date for the sale is 22 December, so if you are concerned about this, please write before then to your councillor (Lawrence Marshall or Maureen Child) or to the Property dept at the Council (either write to David Rogers, Property Manager, Property Development, Economic Development, 1 Cockburn Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1ZW or Donna Cameron at the same address).

You could also write to the head of recreation as it is supposed to be a recreational site (Herbert Coutts, Director, Culture and Leisure, 23-25 Waterloo Place, Edinburgh, EH1 3BH). Graham Dixon from Planning's name is also on the schedule so he would be a useful person to contact about the possible link with the Scottish Power site (address: Planning, PO Box 12473, 6 Cockburn Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1ZL). Another person to write to is Tom Aitcheson, Chief Executive, The City of Edinburgh Council, Council Headquarters, Wellington Court, 10 Waterloo Place, Edinburgh EH1 3EG).

This seems a lot of people to write to but even if you only write to your councillor to ask for the sale of the land to be postponed, that will help.

Once again, it seems that the community of Portobello is about to be short-changed.

[dccairns]

I forgot about the firewall or profanity filter or whatever it's ****** well called. The street whose name has been replaced by asterisks is
C-o-c-k-b-u-r-n St. Hope that gets through.

[bellybabe]

[ras]

[dccairns]

As far as I know they are just being asked to submit a bid, not a design. Once they own the land they will still have to obtain planning permission but as we all know that is no guarantee of quality. The simple answer to your question is "I don't know" but maybe a councillor or the Property Manager at the Council would be able to answer your question.

[Guest]

[Porty]

[Brian McCrow]

[Porty]

[Hawkeye]

[Epykat]

[Maria]

[Brian McCrow]

[dccairns]

[Gemini]

Quote dccairns>
PCATS is calling this meeting but we shall be asking why this has not already been done by our local councillors. end quote.


We seem to recall that our local rep. did not think it necessary to call a public meeting when the application for the Supersore dropped through the letterboxes!

[Gemini]

As the Community Centre (now Bowling Club) on the prom, is serously underused eg - whilst out flogging calanders last weekend, cats members popped into bowling club at approx 10pm, to find a group of elderly ladies (about 10 - not from Porty) having a wee get together, a handful of people using bowling facilities and quite a few staff.

We thought it could and should be better utilised as a proper
Community Centre The Bolwing facilities could easily be transfered to Adelphi CC for those who use them, the Library could be upgraded in situ.

Its a disgrace that this Complex is not utilised for the greater use of the Portobello Community - as I believe it was first intended.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this one?

[Porty]

[ecm]

[Bob Jefferson]

Oh dear, it's all going pear-shaped for the Portobello 'masterplan'.

We need a new Portobello High School, a new library and a new community centre. Many of us also want a tourist office/museum. It's already complicated by the unwanted Superstore bid and now by Powerleague, who are sitting on the one piece of land that the Council feels it can capitalise upon to fund some if not all of our wish list. So what's the deal? What percentage of the proceeds will go to Powerleague who, let's remember, don't own the site?

And what happens to the present Community Centre and Library sites if this goes ahead? More housing. And then what? I believe that Jessfield Bowling Club also has a 100 year lease. How long before the Council starts to look at the possibility of a deal there as well?

When we have drained the swamps and sold off every last square centimetre of land to the developers, then what?

As you know, I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories. I understand that Council officials live in the real world and that they have to make tough decisions based upon practical considerations but there has to be a meeting point between this realpolitik approach and the aspirations of the community. At the moment, with a public meeting looming, that gap is set to become wider unless the Council calls off this sale - at least until the Superstore issue has been settled.

Too much of the Council's dealings is cloaked in 'commercial confidentiality', inevitably leading to suspicion - justified or otherwise. This forum exists to encourage open debate on the issues that affect us as a community in Portobello. That's what we now expect.

[Dakota]

[Brian McCrow]

[Gemini]

[stubetts]

[Porty]

[stubetts]