Thousands promised, hundreds built as the housing gap in Edinburgh grows |
When it comes to housing, most attention this week has been on one big house in Saughton, and how the new resident of HMP Edinburgh’s remand wing might be settling in.
It might not be a four-bed detached new-build in Uddingston, but unlike approximately 5,000 Edinburgh households, disgraced former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell has somewhere to call home, for quite a few years if comparable sentences for embezzlement are anything to go by.
I digress, but the housing shortage dominates a whopping 783-page “Evidence Report” which will form the basis of Edinburgh’s development blueprint for the next 14 years, and goes before the planning committee for approval next week.
Its publication reminded me of when I was involved in the last one, helping to set up two local consultations into housing proposals in my ward, neither of which has come to fruition. One was early in my time and a sharp wake-up call to the realities of grass roots politics – a church hall packed with angry people who felt their community’s identity was about to be torn from them.
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It seemed common sense to me that the dilapidated Meadowbank Stadium needed to be replaced with something more practical and manageable, but that’s not how the locals saw it, and they let me know in no uncertain terms.
They were proud that the stadium had hosted two Commonwealth Games and weren’t ready to accept a like-for-like........