Caltongate development: 'The Capital is in sore need of new investment'

Published on Monday 25 May 2009 10:11

NEWS that the controversial Caltongate development is alive once more will not be met with universal delight.

The same people who worried about the impact on the Old Town's heritage will be ready to take to the barricades once again. Most probably thought the battle had been won by default, when developers Mountgrange Capital went into administration two months ago.

But two of the firm's directors, Manish Chande and Martin Myers, are back with Mountgrange Investment Management LLP. They say they have at least the 300 million needed for the project, and more.

They won't confirm what they'll do with the money, but sources say they see Caltongate as unfinished business. They want to buy back the site and push ahead with the plans which have already been approved, saving time and the cost of a new application.

Given that Mountgrange Capital blamed the four years that its original ideas spent in planning limbo, this could be key to whether or not the revived proposals now go ahead.

There are still many hurdles, not least the Bank of Scotland. Owed 73.8m by Mountgrange Capital, the bank has already asked receivers Deloitte not to sell the Caltongate site for a year, in the hope that its value will rise. Once 45m, it is about half that today.

There will also be the revived protests of those who opposed the scheme for a new hotel, shops, offices and homes. Those voices must continue to be heard, but one advantage of the years it took to secure planning permission is that the impact was rigorously tested by both the council and the Scottish Government.

The bottom line is that the city is in sore need of new investment – and this one could generate 2,000 jobs. Meanwhile, a gap site sits idle and ugly in the heart of the Capital. Good luck to the new bid; Caltongate's hope is Edinburgh's too.

'No to nanny statism'

IT SAYS much for MSP Angela Constance that she decided to see Scotland's alcohol problem at first-hand by riding shotgun on an ambulance one night in West Lothian.

An ex-social worker, Ms Constance doubtless already knew the terrible toll of booze. But where her arguments fall down is when she trots out the SNP party line. Big stick sanctions which punish the law-abiding majority as well as the troublemaking minority – such as minimum pricing and a ban on off-sales for under-21s – are nanny statism and are not the answer.