£1.5m houses put Grange street at top of the rankings

A CITY street where the average home costs £1.5 million has been named the country’s most expensive.

Dick Place, in the Grange, shot to the top of the rankings following a recent report, which also found that 13 of the country’s 20 most costly streets are in the Capital.

Of those addresses, the majority predictably feature in the New Town and Merchiston, though nowhere in East, West or Midlothian appeared on the Bank of Scotland list.

Residents today said that despite the Grange’s wealth, there was a great community spirit, while local politicians said it provided statistical proof of the quality of the area.

Mother-of-two Kathleen King lives in a one-level sprawling property in Dick Place with her husband Howard Beck and children Zoe, 18, and 14-year-old Ben. They have been there for 13 years.

She said: “It’s quite a community-minded street, the people are very nice.

“I’ve lived in other parts of Edinburgh but this is great.

“There are a lot of elderly people but you wouldn’t know this was the most expensive street.

“There is a good mix of children who go to private school and those who go to state school.

“You’ve got a bit of everything, a few eccentrics – but then people might think we’re the eccentric ones.”

Her daughter Zoe, an art student at Telford College, said: “It’s certainly great for trick-or-treating at Hallowe’en.

“You feel really safe growing up here, I think the only bad thing that’s ever happened was we found a woman who had escaped from hospital in our garden.”

Ben, a pupil at nearby James Gillespie’s High School, added: “There used to be more young people about, now it seems to be more elderly folk.

“I like living here though, it’s good.”

Other Edinburgh streets to feature on the exclusive list include Ann Street in the New Town, Murrayfield’s Kinellan Road and Spylaw Bank Road in Colinton.

To qualify, a street has to have had at least seven house sales in the past four years to make comparisons fair, analysts said.

Nitesh Patel, an economist at the Bank of Scotland, said: “Scotland’s most expensive residential streets are concentrated around the three leading cities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen.

“The majority are located in the Capital around the New Town and the West End, in close proximity to the Scottish Parliament and the financial district.”

Southside/Newington Conservative councillor Cameron Rose said: “It just goes to show what an exceptional place the Grange is to live in.

“The movement in the housing market does appear to happening at the top end.

“And great credit has to go to those who laid out the Grange when it was first built.”