The old Royal High School saga is far from over - Kevin Buckle

The big non-Covid news of the week was the refusal by the Scottish Government of the appeal by the Old Royal High School hotel developers – a surprise to some, given the need more than ever for investment in Edinburgh’s economy.

The hotel developers have an option on the old Royal High School until 2022

As it turned out, the hotel’s economic argument was accepted and the quality of the additional buildings not doubted, but it was deemed unacceptable to have new buildings flanking such an iconic building.

The thing about this is that nobody has ever suggested what would be acceptable. In my innocence, when I first looked at the proposal I thought they would just have buildings similar to the Old Royal High, but seemingly it was completely unacceptable to mimic the school building.

What was needed was something that looked different to the Old Royal High building while at the same time blending into the background when viewed from a distance. As one architect friend quipped, there would be no solution until the cloaking technology of Star Trek became a reality.

When it came to the actual building, the music school proposal was deemed more invasive than the hotel works, but looked better from a distance!

With the hotel developers having an option until 2022, I would imagine that if nothing else they have an obligation to investors to salvage what they can from this situation, and with many outside Edinburgh’s chattering classes thinking the music school is far from ideal, they may still come up with a solution that, while not being their first or indeed second choice is still a better solution than the current alternative.

Certainly all sides have had more than enough time to have plans for all eventualities, so it will be more than a little disappointing if we don’t hear more soon.

Meanwhile, another topic featured more than once in this column was raised again this month when the public made the reopening of the South Sub railway the most popular suggestion for transport improvements in Edinburgh.

While there is a small group that have actively tried to keep this option in the public eye, the problem is that, much like the factions involved with the old RHS, there is a far larger group in the active travel brigade and its dominant cycling battalion that aren’t so much against it but see it as competition to their plan.

Indeed, there are some who can’t see a railway line without thinking what a good cycleway it would make, though with the South Sub line still in use for freight, that argument would prove a little more difficult.

Everybody I have spoken to who actually works on the railway finds great merit in reopening the line for passengers, and while acknowledging the issues of an already overcrowded Waverley and the need for stations, is of the opinion that the cost and disruption would be nothing compared to the tram works Edinburgh has seen.

Much more to follow on both counts is the only certainty!