The future of Edinburgh’s former Royal High School will be decided in a closed doors meeting

The future of Edinburgh’s former Royal High School will be decided in a meeting behind closed doors this week.

Decision time: The Royal High School

On Thursday, Edinburgh City Council’s finance committee will meet in private to decide to either continue with the current development lease, retake complete control of the building, give the lease to the music school backers or to put the lease out to market.

The A-listed neoclassical landmark, built in 1829 by Thomas Hamilton, has been lying largely empty since the school relocated in 1968.

It was previously proposed as a home for the Scottish Parliament and a new national photography centre, before the council launched a competition seeking proposals for a hotel redevelopment in 2009.

The winners of the competition, capital-based Duddingston House Properties, were subsequently granted a 125-year lease of the building, with Edinburgh City Council retaining ownership, and the developers have been trying to gain approval for various hotel schemes ever since.

In 2015, plans for a £75m luxury hotel, in partnership with London property developers Urbanist Hotels, were narrowly rejected during an all-day meeting of the council’s planning committee, following outcry from conservationists and heritage groups.

The plans would have seen two six-storey wings built on either side of the former Royal High School building, and attracted objections from Historic Scotland, the Cockburn Association, the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland and over 1,700 members of the public.

In 2016, the Royal High School Preservation Trust obtained planning permission from the council to relocate St Mary’s Music School to the site, with backing from the Dunard Fund and American philanthropist Carol Colburn Grigor, but Duddingston House Properties says it has sole rights to the building until 2022.

After their planning application was rejected, Duddingston House Properties and Urbanist Hotels appealed the decision to the Scottish Government, however, this appeal was delayed as the developers unveiled new, scaled-back proposals for the site, which were submitted to the council for consideration.

The new proposals suggested the wings – which were previously the source of strong criticism from heritage watchdogs – would be smaller and set further back from the road, opening up views blocked off under the old scheme.

The proposed western extension was particularly reduced in height compared to the previous plans.

This time, over 3,000 members of the public objected to the plans, which were rejected by the council in August 2017.

The rejection of the revised plans restarted the appeal to the Scottish government, and in October of last year the plans were rejected by itss Planning and Environmental Appeals Division.

Now, at a private meeting of the on Thursday, councillors will be asked to advise officers of their preferred intentions for the building.

Three of the options - returning control of the building to the council, giving the lease to the music school and putting the lease on the market - will necessitate tearing up the contract with Duddingston House Properties.

The fourth option would give the developers a third attempt at securing planning permission for a hotel on the site.

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