The City of Edinburgh Council has recently published for consultation its 'Edinburgh Local Development Plan: Main Issues Report'.
As you might expect, the most amusing thing about the document is its title. Nevertheless, it's an important report for anyone interested in shaping Edinburgh's development and land use now rather than simply whingeing about them later.
The EDLP takes into account context changes and new legislation. Once completed, it will supercede the Rural West Edinburgh Local Plan and Edinburgh City Local Plan in 2014.
Its main aims are to:
- support the growth of the city economy
- help increase the number and improve the quality of new homes being built in Edinburgh
- help ensure that the citizens of Edinburgh can get around easily by sustainable transport modes and can access jobs and services by these means
- look after and improve our environment for future generations in a changing climate
- help create sustainable communities, enabling all residents to enjoy a high quality of life.
We don't mean to be entirely parochial (we are, of course, equally concerned about the city as a whole), but some areas of the report are more obviously relevant to Broughton than others. Spurtle readers may therefore be particularly interested in:
Q6: reserving more of Leith Docks for port use (rather than housing) to serve the offshore renewables industry
Q8: better managing concentrations of Houses in Multiple Occupation
Q10: reserving some land in Leith for strategic office locations
Q12: continued prioritisation of the Leith Walk town centre (among others) for new retail development
Q13: allowing non-shop uses along Princes Street
Q14: greater flexibility over non-shop uses in the Leith Walk town centre (among others)
Q17: changes of use from houses to non-residential uses. (We wonder whether this would allow even more supermarket penetration.)
There is also a supporting 'Monitoring Statement and Environmental Report' on which comments are invited.
You can access the reports online at www.edinburgh.gov.uk/localdevelopmentplan OR
at McDonald Road / Stockbridge Libraries OR from Planning Reception at Waverley Court, 4 East Market Street (for purchase).
You may answer as many of the questions as you like. The deadline for responses is Friday 27 January 2012. Post or hand them in to the address above, or email via the Council's website.
You can also ask questions and make comments at the following exhibitions:
- Princes Mall, Saturday 3 December, 11am–3pm
- Ocean Terminal, Saturday 7 January, 11am–3pm
- St James Centre, Saturday 14 January, 11am–3pm.