RBS looks to sell green-belt land and build global business hub

ROYAL Bank of Scotland wants a huge swathe of green belt around its global headquarters in Edinburgh to be released for housing and new office developments, The Scotsman has learned.

City planners have been urged to loosen restrictions on development next to its base in Gogarburn to allow the bank to attract major developers, investors and housebuilders.

• Read the full details of RBS’s planning submission

RBS is one of several major landowners in west Edinburgh trying to persuade the city council to free up green-belt land to satisfy demand for new housing and help create an “international business gateway” in the area.

The council has said it may be prepared to allow up to 2,400 homes to be built in west Edinburgh, although none of its preferred sites is on RBS land.

However, the bank insists large chunks of its land could be “sensitively developed” without affecting the wider city landscape and has called on the council to develop “much needed family housing” in the area.

The bank hopes to capitalise on plans for a vast development zone near Edinburgh Airport, which it is hoped will create 3,300 jobs over the next ten years.

Under plans revealed last July, land between RBS’s current HQ and the airport would become home to new offices, hotels and conference facilities and an indoor concert arena, as well as a major expansion for the Royal Highland Showground.

RBS already has planning permission to build an additional 14,000 sq m of offices next to its existing site at Gogarburn.

But in a submission to a city council consultation, the bank calls on the council to allow expansion into the green belt on both sides of the A8 to help RBS establish the area as a “global business hub”.

It has put forward part of its land as offering a “unique opportunity for low-density housing that could serve demand from new global businesses”.

RBS’s planning consultants GVA Grimley states: “In view of the existing RBS development and the second phase planning permission, further development on RBS’s land could include further business-related uses, housing and other anciliary uses. This development… could provide an important opportunity to provide complimentary development to the international business gateway and/or further business expansion.

“In our view, RBS’s landholding at Gogarburn could be sensitively developed without affecting the wider landscape of the city. Views to the site from the wider landscape are predominantly contained by intact woodland belts.”

A spokeswoman for RBS said: “This is very much a long-term consultation that is covering the entire city and we are talking about land that could be developed in future to help the city expand.”

The city council said it was currently considering responses to its proposed local development plan.