Edinburgh Harbour Public Meeting

Greener Leith hopes Forth Ports can do better than their last attempt to build attractive paths.Regular readers of the Greener Leith Blog will be familiar with our campaign to make sure that the Leith Docks Development will be as sustainable and green as possible.  To give the general public an opportunity to make comments on their detailed plans for the first bit of the docks to be developed,  Forth Ports is holding a public meeting on the 27th of January at the Thomas Morton Hall, at 7.00pm.  The Hall is adjacent to the Leith Library at the foot of Ferry Road.

One of the key documents to focus on is the 'Planning and Design Statement'. Here's what they're supposed to do according to the relevant Planning Advice Note, PAN68:

 ‘A design statement should explain and illustrate the design principles and design concept of the proposed layout; landscape; scale and mix; details and materials; and maintenance. It should show, as briefly as necessary, how these will help to achieve the following qualities in the proposed development:

•    Distinctive
•    Safe and pleasant
•    Easy to get to and move around
•    Welcoming
•    Adaptable
•    Resource efficient’

You can read the entire PAN68 here: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/47133/0026407.pdf

Although various broad guidelines on what is going to be built have now been established, through the Leith Docks Development Framework (LDDF adopted in 2005), there is still an opportunity to influence a great deal of the plans at this stage. For example, sustainability standards, quality of Public Realm, active travel provisions and what with the current economic downturn, we hope that it will still be possible to reduce the proposed heights of some of the buildings. 

Currently the plans propose buildings ranging from 4 to 26 storeys high.  Greener Leith fully understands that it is better for the environment to have densely populated towns rather than gobbling up the Greenbelt, but this development also happens to be next to a World Heritage site. So in our opinion, we need to be make sure that these bright and shiny high-rise blocks don’t overwhelm the understated grace and beauty of Auld Reekie and Auld Leith.

The first thing that we noticed, while leafing through the beautifully produced paperwork, is the new name, "Edinburgh Harbour".  This name change is presumably the result of an extensive ‘branding’ process, an activity that's meant to induce ‘loyalty and grow word of mouth’. So far, it has also managed to annoy a fair proportion of Leithers, who thought that it was their Leith Docks that were being developed.

However, whilst pondering the semantic aspects of this proposal, you may know that the whole area has been divided into ‘urban villages’, with the current area, Ocean Terminal, the first to be planned on a more detailed scale.  Now Greener Leith always tries to put its views across in a measured way, but here we are going to nail our colours to the mast:  we cannot think of a dafter description for a densely populated area of high rise buildings mixed with plazas, business quarters and an esplanade than the word ‘village’, urban or not. 

We don’t know if it is possible to invoke the Trades Description Act in this instance, but a worrying aspect of the publication is that most of the artists’ images could be, in our opinion, misleading.  There appears to be a disturbing degree of disregard for the realities of our northern European climate.  Every artist's impression or photo has hordes of people in shorts seeking shelter from the sun under perfectly vertical mature trees.  There are people having coffee on sunny terraces in almost every picture, there’s not a car or lorry in sight.  This document sets out the principles of the development; Greener Leith thinks it is really important that these are realistically conveyed to the general public and not cushioned in fair-weather pictures of waterfronts in warmer climes.

Issues of presentation notwithstanding, we plan to put together a formal response after the public meeting. Here are a few points we've noticed already.

Active Travel.

• There still does not appear to be enough priority given to cycling and walking in the development.  Although efforts have been made to include pedestrian and cycle routes throughout the development, Greener Leith is disappointed that the car is still seen as the primary vehicle that people will use to get around. This is highlighted by the number of car parking spaces proposed in contrast with those proposed for bicycle parking:  5,973 to 241, or about 25 cars for every bicycle. And this despite the fact that these two 'villages' will both be close to the Tram route.
• Greener Leith would like to see much more detailed proposals of safe routes for bicycles and pedestrians and, crucially, how these will link in with the existing network.  These routes must not become an after-thought.  Checking earlier today, on the Edinburgh Planning Portal, an error has been made as the Proposed Pedestrian and Cycle Plan uploaded on the 4th of April 2008, reveals a different document.  Could it please be made available to us?
• There is still little mention of the Waterfront Promenade, other than in passing.  It can be argued that the Promenade, (as opposed to the proposed Esplanade in front of Ocean Terminal) is not strictly part of this part of the development, but it will form an essential element of the core pedestrian/cycle network of Edinburgh and there should be no uncertainties about how it fits in this development.  After all, there would be uproar if it wasn’t completely clear how vehicular traffic was going to be directed around the site.

Energy Efficiency

• Forth Ports are under an obligation to ensure that the development is as carbon neutral as possible. We'd like to know more about whether the proposals meet this aim, and if not, what steps have been taken to make sure that the development is as close to this as possible

Public Realm

• The total area of Public Realm comprises some 41,000m² according to the Statement.  Of this, some 8,000m² are planned as actual green space, or about 4.2 square meters (the size of a picnic rug) for every residential unit to be created in Edinburgh Harbour. Furthermore the phasing diagram puts the actual construction date of Community Park and Waterfront Park at 2016-2018 and 2019+ respectively.   This means that there will be no significant green space created in this part of the development for at least another 10 years! This also doesn’t bode well for the larger parks to be developed in adjacent areas. It could easily take a couple of decades before these would be established.  There is not enough greenspace provision in the development as it is. Greener Leith would like to see work on creating the parks that are in the plans started much sooner in the phasing of the development.
• Our second worry is the other 32,000m² of hard landscaping.  Greener Leith would like to emphasise that all this planned hard landscaping increases the risk of flooding and that, where possible, water permeable surfaces should be used.   
• Public Realm quality. At the moment we're still unclear what vague references to integrating the proposed buildings into the 'surrounding urban context' actually means. It's hard to imagine a 26 storey sky scraper integrating into the 'surrounding urban context' at all.