Luxury pad with the bear necessities for Edinburgh pandas

IT HAS floor-to-ceiling windows and two swimming pools, comes complete with a fitted kitchen and a nursery and has its very own cave. But with a price tag of £250,000, Edinburgh's latest piece of real estate won't be available on the property market.

It's the new Scottish home of giant pandas Tian Tian and Yang Guang.

The city's zoo has revealed detailed plans of its new panda enclosure, under construction in advance of the arrival of the pair of breeding pandas from China later this year. The structure, a revamp of the former gorilla house, includes a bamboo forest, a fully equipped hospital and extensive CCTV coverage.

A 'panda cam' will allow visitors to the zoo's website to watch online as the pandas go about their daily business.

Other outdoor features include a small cave so the pandas can retreat inside for a snooze, paddling pools so the animals can cool themselves down in shallow water and climbing structures so they can take their daily exercise.

Manager Simon Jones told Scotland on Sunday: "The climbing structure is essentially a big log with forks in it, the idea being the panda will climb up and sit in its favourite spot, which is often hanging off a tree."

The panda area will have separate his and hers enclosures to allow the bears - usually solitary creatures - time away from each other, although they will be able to meet up when they want to.

"The pandas should be able to see each other when they choose, so the idea is that the climbing structure is big enough so they can climb up, peer over the wall and look at each other," said Jones.

The enclosures will also have specially-shaped rock features made of Scottish whinstone - the same type of stone that was recently used in the refurbishment of Edinburgh's Rosslyn chapel - so the pandas can lie in the sun or indulge in their favourite pastime of sitting down to eat bamboo.

The area also includes Chinese plants, including ginkgo trees and dawn cypress trees, as well as plenty of bamboo, to make the pair feel at home

Indoors, there will be a fully-fitted kitchen with a set of large baking tins that will allow the keepers to make 'panda cake' - a supplementary food all pandas in captivity are fed that provides them a wide range of nutrients.There will also be a fully-fitted hospital for dealing with any emergencies, a birthing area and a nursery - in the event of the pandas mating during their time in Scotland.

Although pandas are notoriously reluctant breeders, their new home will attempt to encourage the process by including a tunnel running between the two enclosures, meaning their keepers can arrange for the pair to meet up away from the prying eyes of the public.

Marty Hall, the official in charge of the construction project, said: "The tunnel means that they can meet up at controlled times, and there are enough areas away from the public where they can go and hide away together."

The visitor viewing areas - timber walkways surrounded by planted bamboo and behind glass so as not to disturb the pandas - will be split level, allowing around 150 members of the public to see each panda enclosure at a time.

Stream Architecture's Colin Chan, who designed the walkway said: "The intention is for it to be like a forest canopy, so that it feels like walking through a bamboo forest. There are huge areas of glass so visitors can keep moving through and get a clear view of the pandas all the way along."

Tian Tian and Yang Guang are a breeding pair born in China in 2003. Although it is not known when they will arrive in Edinburgh, the zoo aims to have the enclosure finished by mid-July. The Chinese authorities issue guidelines about panda enclosure when loaning animals to foreign zoos, and Edinburgh will have a week's worth of bamboo on site at a time. It has even constructed a purpose built bamboo storage facility, as pandas can eat up to 30lb of bamboo a day.

Hall said the refurbishment was designed to be cost effective too. "The original plan was to have a purpose built structure, but in the financial market, spending 3m to 4m on a new enclosure just wasn't the thing to do. Refurbishing the old gorilla house was a no brainer, it will give us a world leading building for the fraction of the price of a new one."

It was announced in January that a deal had been done with China to bring the two pandas to Edinburgh - the first giant pandas in a British zoo for 17 years. The project was the culmination of five years of negotiations at the highest diplomatic and political levels. However, since the announcement the zoo has been hit by controversy with two senior executives, Gary Wilson and Iain Valentine, suspended and a third official dismissed. Earlier this month, zoo chairman Donald Emslie resigned after an Emergency General Meeting. Wilson has now been reinstated, and officials hope the pandas will help the zoo recover from the negative publicity.