Restoring buildings is kinder and greener - Bruce Whitehead
I hadn't been through Haymarket for some time when I took the train to Liverpool last weekend for the Your Party UK launch conference. I glanced across at Platform 1 and did a fairly plausible double take.
A huge hole in the ground had appeared where Rosebery House, a brown and glass pre-cast concrete office block had once stood. Not the prettiest of 1970s architecture, but certainly not the worst. Now a multi-storey new build is to go up, housing not locals but an insurance firm.
This week civil servants, the people who actually implement our elected councillors' policies, suddenly changed their minds about what to do with a 1950s block of flats. Sound familiar? Weeks ago, council officials ditched Dune bakery days before handing over the keys for a major expansion project, with the loss of 12 new jobs in Queensferry. They'd suddenly been persuaded by engineers that the flats, at Westfield Court in Gorgie were no longer fit for redevelopment, and needed to come down.
In an example of people-power, the tenants' union, Living Rent organised a residents' lobby group which disrupted the council meeting, ensuring that we all got to hear about their plight. Instead of flattening their homes, they understandably just want them repaired. After all, the council's spending £5m of our money on a new concert hall, when the Capital has dozens.
I don't know the specific construction problems involved, nor if Rosebery House could have been re-furbished. But I’ve noticed a tendency to demolish, rather than refurbish our public buildings. Developers prefer the new construction profits over the painstaking work of re-instatement of older buildings.
But one sustainable development company says refurbishment is a better option. AECOM's analysis shows that 60 per cent of construction carbon emissions are embodied in the frame, floors and roof. Because refurbishment retains all these elements, the resulting carbon footprint is halved.
Edinburgh council needs to reconsider its cavalier preference for demolition, and think more about refurb and re-use. After all, the Westfield folk demand it.