City development: 'The fact firms see future here is heartening'

Published on Friday 2 April 2010 10:00

IT WOULD be easy to go over the top in proclaiming the welcome increase in applications to build major new developments in the Capital as a sign that the recession is coming to an end.

Many of the 26 big proposals registered in Edinburgh since August are schemes which have been long in the planning and are only now ready for early consideration by officials.

The number also includes several public sector projects which rely at least in part on taxpayers' cash, such as the latest batch of social housing and developments at the new Sick Kids and ERI hospitals at Little France.

But the whole city should be encouraged that the number of major applications here is more than the combined number of similar schemes planned in Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee – 13, three and four respectively.

The Edinburgh projects include a number that should bring much needed jobs and investment, if they go ahead – from a new hotel in Leith to a recycling plant at Newbridge.

The applications are at an early stage and all must be rigorously assessed with local community involvement. But the fact that so many entrepreneurs and firms see a future here is heartening indeed.

Critical condition

STILL on the subject of big developments, and in particular the new Sick Kids hospital, the News warned last month that the government's refusal to fund a 48 million brain surgery centre at Little France would have serious consequences.

Sadly, we have been proven right. Taking the original designs for the new hospital back to the drawing board and the likely need to secure more land to build it will, we are told, delay the project by at least six months – and some believe that is an optimistic assessment.

Staff at the existing Sick Kids hospital in Sciennes do a marvellous job, but they are working in conditions that are far from fit for purpose.

They urgently require new facilities and any unnecessary delay at Little France only hinders them in their quest to improve services.

Having rejected NHS Lothian's original neurosurgery scheme, the onus is now on the government not only to fast-track approval of a new one but also to ensure that funding is made available as quickly as possible.

We still think the original promise of public funding should be honoured, but if it must fall to the SNP's Scottish Futures Trust to deliver a replacement then it must do so with the minimum of delay.

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