Canal-side block of Edinburgh flats gets go-ahead on appeal but residents still unhappy

Objectors say development is almost the same as one rejected last year

Residents say the scale and height of the flats would overwhelm the site in Lower Gilmore Place

PLANS for a four-storey block of flats on the canalside at Fountainbridge have been given the go-ahead after developers appealed against the city council’s decision to refuse the proposals.

Glencairn Properties can now demolish existing commercial buildings on Lower Gilmore Place to make way for a four-storey block of 20 flats, nine of which are to be affordable homes.

But residents are still unhappy about the development which they say is too big for the site and too high to fit with surrounding buildings.

The council’s development management sub-committee decided last October to refuse permission for the development by six votes to five, due to the building’s “excessive massing, which would lead to an unsympathetic and over-dominant addition to the surrounding streetscape”.

But now a Scottish Government planning reporter has upheld the appeal by Glencairn, saying the new block of flats will retain “an intimate and human scale” and bring “coherence and distinctiveness” to a location “characterised by fragmented and poor quality development”.

Residents say they would welcome an appropriate development on the site in harmony with the surrounding area, but not “a monolithic overcrowded shapeless block”.

Ishbel McFarlane, treasurer of the Gilmore Place Lochrin Residents Association, said: “The local community believes the proposed development overwhelms the site and is simply trying to squeeze in as many apartments as possible onto the small site.”

In 2017 Glencairn withdrew an application for the site following objections from 107 residents.

The following year a fresh application drew 120 objections and a Scottish Government reporter refused it on appeal.

Ms McFarlane said the proposals now approved had failed to take account of many of the criticisms of the plan turned by the previous reporter in 2018.

“The reporter said it was overdeveloped with an application for 20 flats, but the new application was still for 20 flats. He said it should be three storeys with a sloping roof but it is still four storeys with a flat roof. They have taken a little slither off the front to make it a bit like a Dutch roof.

“We are very upset and angry that basically the same mass of building which was rejected in 2018 and was re-submitted with a few ‘tweaks’ and rejected by the planning committee has now been passed.”

City council canal champion Gavin Corbett said there was “a fair bit of disappointment” in the area at the decision.

He said: “I’ve not met anyone who thinks Lower Gilmore Place is the best it can be. With its mash-mash of derelict buildings and mixed uses, it is very much a relic of the canalside as it was in the neglected decades.

“The development could do so much more to open out the canal on that side and also create a really attractive cycling and walking route from the Leamington Lift Bridge to the Meadows.”

Daryl Teague, managing director of Glencairn Properties said: “We are delighted that the appeal has been granted and look forward to moving forward with the regeneration of Lower Gilmore Place.”

He said work on the site could start early next year.