Over the weekend, we posted on Facebook here the photograph you see on the right alongside the question posed in the headline above.
We wondered whether Edinburgh residents had become accepting, indifferent, or too exhausted by another year’s mudfest to feel much fussed about the issue. We wanted to gauge whether the sorry state of our ‘tranquil green space’ still stirred local feelings.
The response proved that St Andrew Square continues to vex. We reproduce readers’ reactions below, our ‘Likes’ signifying thanks for participating rather than endorsements.
Spurtle thinks that private and commercial pressure on publicly owned or otherwise civically envisaged spaces has been increasingly problematic in Edinburgh over recent years. We think it’s time we pushed back against those who keep trying to monetise or garishly intrude upon every available inch of it.
This is not an elitist concern – green and beautiful spaces matter to everyone. It’s not an issue that's confined to St Andrew Square – Princes Street Gardens, the Mound, George Street, the Royal Mile, the Meadows and Inverleith Park are under pressure as well.
Nor – obviously – is this matter Edinburgh’s only concern: there are plenty of other issues demanding urgent attention.
But celebrating and defending civic space is a cause that many local people clearly identify, and one about which we have hopes of generating some cross-party consensus in the run-up to May’s local-authority election.
We urge all readers to tell their candidates how seriously they take the subject, and ask them what they intend to do about it.
If you want to add comments of your own, please contact us at spurtle@hotmail.co.uk and @theSpurtle and Facebook
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