Pioneer who wrote rules of golf declared out of bounds

IT WAS meant to cement Edinburgh’s claim as the home of the golf – and wrestle the mantle away from St Andrews.

But now a bronze statue of an 18th-century surgeon credited with coming up with the first rules of the game is set to trigger an overhaul of regulations protecting the capital’s beauty spots, after it was ruled out of bounds.

Planning chiefs were unable to approve the statue of John Rattray, captain of the club where the first rules were laid down at Leith Links in 1744, and also the winner of the first competition, due to a curb on development in the capital’s parks. Councillors are planning to amend a bylaw, introduced in 1991, to protect the Links, as well as Princes Street Gardens, Calton Hill, Bruntsfield Links and the Meadows, rather than ask for an exemption for the statue.

The existing law has already led to the council relocating plans for a skatepark from the Meadows, while plans to overhaul the ageing Ross Bandstand in Princes Street Gardens have stalled for the same reason.

Officials have warned there is a risk a “minor” amendment to the bylaw for the statue may fall foul of MSPs. The council has also warned there may be “substantial” legal costs involved in going through the parliamentary process. However, any change to the existing rules protecting the parks may trigger even greater protests from heritage bodies opposed to any watering down of the protective measures.

Planning leader Jim Lowrie said: “We really do need to look again at the whole bylaw, as it prevents us doing anything at all in any of these parks. There was actually an exception put into the bylaw to allow new statues to go into Princes Street Gardens, but not Leith Links, as no-one anticipated anything like this.

“The existing rules mean we can’t do anything about the Ross Bandstand so we do need to have a full review, which would probably take just as long as trying to get some kind of exemption through for this statue.”

Historians in Leith, where golf is reputed to have been played as early as the 15th century, have been pursuing the statue plan for the past two years.

The hitch may force the Leith Rules Golf Society, which had pledged to raise the £250,000 for the statue, being forced to abandon the monument to Rattray, who joined Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Jacobite army and became personal surgeon to the prince.

Campaigners are dismayed at the blow to the plan for the statue, after artist David Annand – who was behind statues of three-time motor racing world champion Jim Clark, accordion legend Sir Jimmy Shand and poet Robert Fergusson – created a bronze maquette last year to show what the finished work of art would look like.

Pat Denzler, chair of the society, said: “We’re not giving up and we’re hopeful something will be able to be worked out, even if it needs to go to the Scottish Parliament.”