Council ruining historic city square

Charlotte Square is being despoiled by ugly and inappropriate street furniture, says Sue Webber

Edinburgh City Council has spent a considerable amount of time and public money on a management plan for protecting the Old Town and New Town but judging by Charlotte Square the organisation mostly likely to ruin them is the council itself.

Not only is the beautiful Georgian garden ringed with ugly bollards – including the infamous disappearing bike lane to nowhere – but now it has been despoiled by the ugliest and most inappropriate ramp you could imagine.

It’s apparently temporary, but then so were the bollards supposed to be when they were rolled out under cover of Covid, so goodness knows how long the latest monstrosity the council has thrown up will be with us.

Thrown up is a good description of the design for the ramp installed on one of our most beautiful and historic locations where, according to council planning guidance, development is supposed to “respect and protect the Outstanding Universal Value of each World Heritage Site and its settings”.

And the draft New Town management plan calls for the “use of high-quality materials”.

We can only conclude this includes slapping raw concrete onto the wonderful Georgian setts, and what looks like handrails made from off-cut pipework from the Grangemouth Refinery jarring with the elegant black ironmongery which is a hallmark of the New Town’s world-renowned architecture.

When council planners make homeowners jump through hoops for the most innocuous extension, there really does appear to be one rule for them and one for the rest of us.

Sue Webber is a Scottish Conservative Lothian MSP