Here’s the ideal site for new Filmhouse tower – Helen Martin

Edinburgh’s Festival Square is the wrong place for what sounds like a good project, writes Helen Martin.

An artist's impression of the plan for the new Filmhouse

EDINBURGH is not a skyscraper place. The most important high rise is the Castle.

Edinburgh City Council is desperate to modernise and change this historic Capital which always annoys me, not least because the economy is dire at the moment and the council is constantly complaining about funding cuts. The basic needs of citizens certainly don’t seem to be a priority.

Banning cars and buses in the heart of the city centre is understandable as long as there are carbon neutral wee rickshaws which can enable those with walking difficulties and the elderly to access shops, restaurants and anything else.

Last year the council had notions for Lothian Road to become a tree-lined boulevard predominantly for pedestrians and cyclists. But as a main route to the centre, that would be a problem for many if buses were ruled out.

The new plan now also includes the 11-storey (three of them below ground), eye-shaped building, for the Filmhouse and the Edinburgh International Film Festival, in Festival Square. That sounds like a good project, it’s a dramatic, exciting design and carbon neutral – but at that location?

All the discussions about over-tourism have involved the potential of spreading tourist events and attractions across and around the city rather than choking up the Old Town and Princes Street Gardens, and wrecking the lives of city residents. Festival Square is the plot that links up the gardens, the Castle and the Grassmarket. Tourist mobs will be even more intense.

With Sean Connery’s son creating the new film and TV studio in Leith, wouldn’t that area also be a logical place for this movie viewing centre?

And it would also be less likely to block the site of the Castle.