Help us choose the perfect place for the city’s Olympic rings

IN the wake of a public outcry over plans to fix giant Olympic rings to Edinburgh Castle, the Evening News is proposing alternative sites to locate the London 2012 advert.

The News revealed last week how Games chiefs had lodged plans to mount an aluminium-cast Olympic insignia on the north face of the Castle as part of a vision to promote the event as “inclusive and UK-wide”.

If green-lit by council planners, an eight-metre high model of the five Olympic rings – as well as an even taller Paralympic Agitos symbol – would be attached to the Castle ramparts and be seen for miles across the north of the city throughout next summer’s Games.

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But a string of heritage bodies, politicians and even some ex-Olympians have railed against the plans, criticising the use of Scotland’s national monument as advertising hoarding for an event in a rival city.

Edinburgh’s deputy leader Steve Cardownie voiced strong opposition to the plan branding it “ludicrous” and “a nonsense”.

Today he praised the News’ stance, and chose his preferred location of the Olympic symbol.

He said: “I think it’s a great idea to offer up alternative locations rather than Edinburgh Castle because the people of this city are not anti-Olympics.

“Having the Olympic logo elsewhere in the city would generate a great amount of interest but at the moment they have got the wrong site.

“My preference would be to have it on the grass area of the Mound or the City Chambers.

“It would be more sympathetic to the surroundings than Edinburgh Castle’s battlements and wouldn’t present the same problems.

“Having it on the Castle would be a sophisticated form of graffiti.”