Old Town plan ‘like using MFI to fix Chippendale’

A ROW over the architecture of a hotel development to fill an ugly blackened hole left by a fire in the heart of Edinburgh’s Old Town nearly a decade ago is threatening to stall the project even longer.

A rare consensus behind the scheme for one of the capital’s most sensitive sites risks falling apart after designs were “shorn of detail” at the behest of Edinburgh city council planners, objectors to the proposal claim.

Leading conservation groups and influential figures in the arts community, from author Alexander McCall Smith to artists and film-makers, had backed plans at the South Gate/Cowgate (SOCO) site, including a 259-room Ibis hotel.

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But changes that have crept in ahead of a key city council planning meeting this month have infuriated the defenders of Edinburgh’s historic streets.

Period architectural features designed to match historic South Bridge buildings facing the site, devastated by the fire in 2002, have been flattened, insiders said, after city council staff and Historic Scotland advisers criticised them as “pastiche”.

The Edinburgh World Heritage organisation, tasked with protecting the city’s Unesco site, has said it cannot support the changes ahead of a key council meeting.

Director Adam Wilkson, in a letter to the council’s development department, said: “It appeared the scheme was developing well, in a manner that had support of a broad range of bodies in the city involved in architecture and heritage.”

He added that, after “surprise and disappointment” over the details, the organisation has urged council planners to reconsider.

Artist Hugh Buchanan, who had joined the likes of McCall Smith in publicly supporting the scheme, said vital mouldings and cornices were now “flat and lifeless”.

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He said the building was “one corner of a classical set piece and should faithfully match its neighbours”.

“Would you replace the broken leg of a Chippendale chair with something you had found at MFI?” he asked.

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Film director Douglas Rae said: “It’s a hell of a compromise and not something we’re prepared to accept. If we can’t save the buildings we have become world famous for, what is there?”

The Cockburn Association, another guardian of the city’s heritage, also pulled its support. A third group, the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland, said the plans “fail to match the quality and character” of the buildings around it and do not fit the city’s original planning brief.

The site is a complex one. Scheme architects Jansons’ designs include one building that rises above South Bridge, facing the 18th century buildings of Robert Kay. Conservationists say it is part of a grand route linking some of Edinburgh’s greatest works of architecture in the Old and New Town, and should be close to their designs.

But lower down it faces on to Cowgate, where modern buildings have grown up more freely.

A council spokesperson said: “The design solution has evolved from detailed discussions between the council and Jansons, and their architects throughout the planning process. Planning policy states ‘a faithful historic reconstruction of Kay’s built scheme could be an acceptable solution. A pastiche approach will not be supported”.

A spokeswoman for Historic Scotland said: “Historic Scotland is very happy to provide advice to the city of Edinburgh Council who have been leading the. discussion, but consider the council has the skills and necessary expertise to deal with this important site.”

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A spokesman for Jansons said: “We are really pleased that we have got an agreement on the vast majority of the issues in relation to the development of what is a very sensitive site in the World Heritage centre. The issue comes down to one particular detail in the proposals.

“This is a £35 million development that will bring new life to an area of the city where it is badly needed, and will help heal what was described as a gaping wound in the heart of Edinburgh. Jansons are really keen to start development as quickly as possible.”

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However, conservation architect James Simpson laid into the scheme. He said: “It is the most important development of the World Heritage for some considerable time and if we don’t get this right we will be the laughing-stock once again internationally.”

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