Atholl Crescent campaigners criticise Edinburgh World Heritage over 'support' for 544-bed 'super hostel'
Campaigners trying to stop a 544-bed "super hostel" in a prestigious Georgian crescent have accused a heritage body of failing to champion conservation within Edinburgh's world heritage site.
The proposed hostel in Atholl Crescent at the West End has drawn 280 objections from the Cockburn Association and Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland, as well as the opposition of all four councillors for City Centre ward.
But residents have criticised Edinburgh World Heritage (EWH) for its stance, which said the proposed use was "acceptable" and added: "We support the heritage-led approach taken, noting the high degree of reversibility of the scheme.”
And now EWH director Terry Levinthal is under fire from the campaigners after he wrote to them, insisting EWN does not "support" the scheme, and they discovered he is due to give a lecture next month entitled “Does Edinburgh still deserve World Heritage status?”
The publicity for the event goes on to ask: "Does it have too many visitors? Too many hotels? Too many student flats?"
Philip Flockhart, a conservation architect who is leading the residents' campaign, said Mr Levinthal was planning to lecture about how to protect the cherished environment that they have been urging him for months to help preserve.
He continued: “Serious questions have been raised about how EWH could give its backing to this proposal and still claim to protect our World Heritage status. Now, the organisation charged with safeguarding the Unesco designation is publicly musing about whether the city is worthy of it or not. It is beyond parody.
“EWH support for the scheme was clearly made in their planning response and there is no mention of an equivocal position. We do not believe that anyone reading the EWH statement would regard it as anything other than supportive of the scheme. This is the very opposite view of the other heritage bodies."
The publicity for the April 22 lecture entitled "Celebrating 30 years of World Heritage in Edinburgh" also asks: “How do you balance economic growth with civic liveability? Could Edinburgh find itself on UNESCO’s World Heritage at Risk register and follow the fate of Liverpool and lose its World Heritage status?”
Mr Flockhart said: “If Atholl Crescent is emblematic of the calibre of protection that EWH continues to offer the World Heritage Site, then yes, it is at risk”.
The planning application by Atholl Crescent Propco Ltd is due to be decided by a Scottish Government planning reporter after the developers lodged an appeal before the council dealt with it.
Mr Levinthal said describing the proposed use as acceptable was not the same as supporting the project.
He said: "We have clarified our position many times with the objectors and they simply don't accept our clarification. They are entitled to take whatever view they want.
"It is true that we said we found the use acceptable - we note the buildings were last used as a domestic dwellings well over a century ago. They were converted and extended and amended and knocked about over many phases, first of all as a domestic skills college and then converted to offices for a major legal practice.
"The question is: is the change of use, from business to hotel and hostel, acceptable? And in our assessment it is because it causes no significant impact to the outstanding universal value of the world heritage site and we have to accept that many buildings within the world heritage site and outside have undergone a similar transformation."
But Mr Levinthal said EWH had also noted that there was no real guidance on how many bedspaces there could be. "That's a gap in planning policy. And thinking about that, we highlighted our concerns with the proposals, in particular the implications of a series of building regulations, notably fire regulations and ventilation.
"At no point have we ever said we support the development. The objectors are taking the view that as we have not objected to it we are therefore supporting it."
On the lecture and the issue of whether too many hotels were spoiling the world heritage site, Mr Levinthal suggested the campaigners should go along and hear what he had to say. "It's posed as a question," he said.