Hearts' plans

Published on Saturday 5 July 2008 11:19

EDINBURGH'S conservation lobby will feel their fears about the controversial Haymarket hotel plan are being realised earlier than they thought, with Hearts now pressing hard for their ambitious plans for a new stand at Tynecastle to be approved

Both sides have a point. The conservationists worried not only that the 17-storey hotel would have a negative impact on the city skyline but that it would set a dangerous precedent. And so Hearts believe that the warnings from planners about their plans for a nine-floor hotel on McLeod Street are now virtually irrelevant.

Despite the vociferous arguments against the Haymarket scheme, most notably led by Lord McCluskey, the council officers have been pragmatic in recommending it for approval. On one count, the alternative was a very unimaginative and almost brutal scheme put forward by the council's own development firm, EDI, which already had planning permission. This would not only have meant that luxury hotel operator Intercontinental would have gone elsewhere, but the creation of new thoroughfares to improve the district would have been abandoned.

And so too should the officers show the same understanding when it comes to the Hearts application.

The football club desperately needs to find ways to finance itself beyond the largesse of a single owner and needs to make the most of its assets. The hotel plan promises to be part of that and the proposed scheme does not appear to have a negative effect on the area and is certainly an improvement on what is there now.

Approving the Hearts scheme will not take the same leap of faith as the Haymarket hotel and the city needs to make sure it happens.

There are plenty of examples of where the council has acted against local concern when on balance a development was deemed to serve a greater interest. Just up the road from Tynecastle are the Boroughmuir playing fields at Meggetland, now dominated by blocks of flats whose appearance is at best questionable and the go-ahead for which was granted on the basis that the sports facilities were improved.

If it's good enough for Haymarket and Boroughmuir it should be good enough for Hearts.