Plans for 558-bedroom student accommodation block at former Leith gasworks site submitted by developers

Plans include 18 affordable homes and four shop units.
Plans for the former gasworks site on Baltic Street have been submitted (Photo: Sundial Properties)Plans for the former gasworks site on Baltic Street have been submitted (Photo: Sundial Properties)
Plans for the former gasworks site on Baltic Street have been submitted (Photo: Sundial Properties)

Transformational plans to radically change the face of a former scrapyard have formally been revealed after a planning application was submitted by developers.

Sundial Properties are hoping to build a mixed-use student accommodation development which could see up to 558 students during term time if Edinburgh City Council grant planning permission.

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Alongside the 66 HMO (house of multiple occupancy) compliant flats, the plans include 18 affordable homes, and two two-bedroom warden flats.

Four shop unites and a public cafe with a ‘digital co-working space’ will also be delivered alongside the student accommodation block.

More than 650 cycle parking spaces and four disabled car parking spaces are also part of the development.

The plans will see the former Dalton’s Scrapyard on Constitution Street and the former Edinburgh and Leith Gasworks site on Baltic Street transformed.

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Prior to being used as a scrapyard, the Constitution Street part of the development was used as a naval yard for Leith Docks before being used as a granary and a coal yard before the historic warehouses were demolished in the 1970s.

The Baltic Street part of the site was the original location for the Leith Gas Company, founded in 1823, built to take advantage of the railway to the north.

It was sold to timber merchants in 1915 and was used for the sale and distribution of building supplies until recently

Parts of the former gasworks are Category B listed but are described as having been unused for more than a decade and “decaying rapidly” with the former purifying building in a “dangerous condition”.

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The proposals also supercede previous plans for the site after the scrapyard site was purchased last year by the developers.

In the Design and Access Statement for the plans, Sundial Properties describe the planned accommodation as having flats housing between four and 11 students, with no ‘studio’, or contained one-bed apartments, in the development.

Describing the ‘digital co-working space’, the developers state it will: “provide high speed data and other business services, such as printing and copying.”

They add: “The facility is intended both for study and for start-up businesses.

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“The intention is to provide a place which acts as an interface between the student residents and the wider public.”

The 18 affordable homes will include eight one-bedroom flats, six two-bedroom houses and four three-bedroom properties.

The new build will also sit within two minutes walk of the tram extension’s new stop on Bernard Street.