Council has no authority over Dundas monument - John McLellan
Rarely slow to report people it doesn’t like, City of Edinburgh Council is rattling legal sabres at the descendants of Henry Dundas for removing the controversial plaque blaming him for casting thousands of Africans into slavery from his St Andrew Square monument.
The Melville Monument Committee, led by the 10th Viscount Melville, which disagrees with the wording, was reported to the police, only for the police to confirm there was no criminality. Breaches of planning regulations were no use because permission for removal had been granted by, yes, the council.
Thanks to digging by land expert and ex-Green MSP Andy Wightman, it seems the council doesn’t actually own the square or monument, but in a deal going back to the 19th Century it’s a caretaker on behalf of the landowners, the companies owning the surrounding buildings.
The council agreed a 50-year lease in 2007, and only a year later sub-let it to the Essential Edinburgh business improvement organisation.
Therefore, despite putting legal frighteners on Viscount Melville, it appears the council might not even have had proper permission to install the plaque in the first place and therefore had no authority to threaten anyone.
Never mind the disputed words on the plaque, the SNP-Labour administration was so keen to jump on the Black Lives Matter bandwagon that it appears the homework wasn’t done on ownership either. Perhaps there should be a monument to the legal services department, but to save money a dunce’s traffic cone on the ridiculous Everyman Joe statue outside Waverley Court will do. Listed building permission not required.