City prepares to kick-start development at Caltongate

Published on Monday 1 March 2010 08:41

A DEAL is expected to be struck on kick-starting development on the Caltongate site within the next month, it emerged today.

Senior city council sources say they are waiting for imminent details from the receivers in charge of the site about which company has been chosen to take the development forward.

The council is now preparing to open talks on what any development will mean for the assets that it still owns on the site.

It is not yet known whether the original scheme – which included a five-star hotel and scores of shops, offices and homes – will still be taken forward on the site.

The former site of the New Street bus depot has been lying empty for several years following a lengthy planning process then the collapse of developer Mountgrange a year ago. It is now managed by Deloitte, which was appointed as Mountgrange's administrator.

Bank of Scotland – which was owed nearly 74 million by Mountgrange – is thought to be in control of what happens next.

Council sources say that once a preferred development partner is chosen a negotiation will take place between the partner, Deloitte, Bank of Scotland and the council over what happens with council-owned assets like the C-listed Canongate Ventures building and nine one-bedroom flats.

Councillor Tom Buchanan, the city's economic development leader, said: "This administration does not like the idea of gap sites across the city.

We want to see development take place, although we do understand that these are challenging times."

While property experts say that any new developer taking on a site like Caltongate will want to draw up their own plans for development, it is thought that many will be concerned at the length of time it took Mountgrange to gain consent. The firm blamed the four-year planning process for contributing to its collapse.

And any developer looking to submit new plans would have to face a new planning system that now includes a pre-application consultation stage and the requirement to win approval not only from the planning committee but also by full council, because of the scale of the development.

Cllr Buchanan said:

"The thing with Caltongate is that we need a definite steer from the bank about what they want to do with it now. We know that there is a lot of interest and a planning approval in place

and there are a number of hotel occupiers talking with the bank, but it is their decision to make not mine

."

Nobody at Deloitte was willing to comment on its progress on finding a developer.