Edinburgh's old Royal High School building: Could matters finally be coming to a head? – Steve Cardownie

Tomorrow the Green group on the City Council will attempt to move the former Royal High School building saga along by instructing the administration to publish details of the contract it has signed with the current developer to see if there is a way out.

Will Edinburgh's old Royal High School building become a hotel or a music school? (Picture: Steven Scott Taylor)

Having taken on the council’s brief to bring forward plans for a hotel development on the site, Duddingston House Properties has been thwarted in their attempts to make that happen.

Their most recent plan was unceremoniously thrown out by the planning committee and it suffered the same fate when considered by Scottish government ministers last October after a public inquiry.

The plan to build a luxury hotel with multi-storey extensions was just too much to thole if the character of the existing building was to be maintained and the developers were quite literally sent back to the drawing board. They have now returned with a new, more modest plan, which they hope will curry favour with the powers that be.

Waiting in the wings is an alternative proposal with St Mary’s Music School poised to occupy the building, financed by a benefactor, Carol Grigor, who will bankroll the flit.

Despite the Greens’ best efforts to bring matters to a head, the developers are intent on holding the council to the terms of the contract which runs until 2022.

That the relocation of St Mary’s Music School would make a valuable contribution to the cultural fabric of the city is in no doubt. However the developer’s determination to press ahead with a hotel is also is in no doubt.

Watch this space!

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