Edinburgh needs housing on sites like old Tynecastle High School – John McLellan

The plan to turn the old Tynecastle High School into student flats is yet another illustration of the tensions in meeting housing demand in Edinburgh, and the lack of easy solutions.

Plans to turn the former Tynecastle High School into accommodation for 468 students have been lodged with Edinburgh Council

The site is difficult because a sewer down one side can’t be built over, and the grade B listing of the main building will add cost to the development, so it’s not hard to see why a student complex is the developer’s favoured choice.

As the requirement for amenity space is less for student flats than housing, they can get more units on the site and generate a better return for the expense, but there is opposition from local activists who want social housing.

Talk of “accidentally burying” a noise assessment, which says the site is not suitable for accommodation of any kind because of the nearby distillery, is odd, when planning officers have not produced a full report and the application has not gone to councillors, as it surely will.

But two issues spring to mind. The developer says that 1,591 students live in the open housing stock in Gorgie and argue that the scheme could return some 180 houses to the general market without saying how.

However, as the general housing shortage is so acute, surely it is the noise ruling which needs addressing, and soundproofing included in the specification. If Hounslow people can live under the approaches to Heathrow Airport, then Gorgie newcomers can live with a distillery. The malty pong might even be a selling point.