Zoo's planning problem - 'As mistakes go, this is a colossal one'

The adminisitrative blunder which has delayed work on the new panda enclosure is just the latest catastrophe to hit the city's zoo.

As we reveal today, bosses forgot to seek planning permission after plans for the bears' 250,000 new enclosure became more extensive.

That means tools have had to be downed as staff frantically try to get the paperwork in order - just weeks before the Chinese government is expected to hand over the animals.

As the zoo's head man says in our article today, "everyone makes mistakes". But this is a particularly colossal one and it has to cast doubt on the way the zoo has been run.

For the sake of the zoo, and the Capital as a whole, we have two big hopes. The first is that the Chinese aren't paying too much attention to what is going on over here as Edinburgh prepares to join an exclusive club of zoos with giant pandas.

The second is that this latest cock-up was just down to the problems caused by short-term internal problems which saw two senior officials suspended while 'malicious' allegations against them were probed.

The good news is that the zoo now has a new interim chief executive in Hugh Roberts who, so far, looks like he could be just the calm but tough character the institution needs.

We certainly hope he lives up to that billing and cleans up the zoo's act - pronto.

Cleaning up?

could the advent of fortnightly bin collections open the door to a private firm cleaning up on the streets of Edinburgh? Hertfordshire-based Waste Concern seems to think so.

It might be hard to imagine many householders rushing to spend around 500 a year for a service which they are already paying the local authority to do through their council tax - however well or badly it gets done.

But that has not stopped the company from building up a business across a large swathe of southern England on the back of disgruntlement with the ditching of weekly collections by local authorities there.

Maybe it is the fact it offers just one bin, instead of the ten bins, bags and boxes currently handed to Edinburgh residents, that is the secret of its appeal.

Separating material for recycling at a depot can lower the quality of what is reclaimed, but it certainly makes life easier in the kitchen.

It will be interesting to watch how much demand there is for this service, and, if it gets off the ground, whether the council can learn any lessons in cost-effectiveness from it.