Edinburgh is held back by can't do attitude. It should be like Glasgow
Read more
But at least Glasgow can summon a can-do attitude when necessary, and the India Street student skyscraper can't be as bad as the grim post-war government offices it will replace. Since Edinburgh University got away with the Appleton Tower in the 1960s, overlooking Bristo Square and the only half-wrecked George Square, tall buildings in Edinburgh are taboo.
The last serious attempt was Tiger Developments' rejected 16- storey hotel at Haymarket, pitched as a 'gateway' to the city centre, stymied by fierce local opposition led by the late judge and West End resident, Lord McCluskey. Instead there is a black stump of offices in a half-built square flanked by the foundations for the International Conference Centre's hotel school, blocked by Edinburgh Council, its ranks of yellow-capped rusting metal rods from exposed reinforced concrete forlornly waiting for the first floor, a monument to the victory of personal animosity over vision.
My overall impression from The Herald's magnifying glass on Edinburgh is the extent to which a 'can't do, unless…' attitude still dominates debate, in which nothing happens without a host of conditions and caveats, adding cost and time to the smallest project.
Preserving the cityscape is well understood and accepted, but other adornments make Edinburgh a costly place to invest. New schools must be built to Scandinavian 'Passivhaus' standards of insulation, housing schemes must have district heating systems, car parking is limited but extensive bike storage is de rigueur, all for the sake of the unachievable goal of reaching net zero by 2030.
Edinburgh's George Street looking west. Picture:Gordon Terris (Image: Gordon Terris) New policy means 35 per cent of homes in all but the smallest new developments must be 'affordable', which makes the rest more unaffordable. I remember sitting with astonishment on the Development Management (DM) sub-committee as my colleagues considered rejecting the redevelopment of the old Sick Kids hospital because there should be two more affordable three-bedroom flats, despite the housing charity involved insisting there was no market for them in that location.
Speaking to a highly experienced development agent this week, he said that despite positive personnel changes on the DM sub-committee, building in Edinburgh was just getting harder. Policy-driven add-ons, like heat pumps and expensive insulation standards, mean obtaining planning permission is all very well, but getting companies to actually build is another when a diminishing number of construction contractors can prioritise simpler and more cost-effective schemes elsewhere.
Too many councillors set policy on the basis of what they want the world to be, not as it is, usually underscored by pronouncements that as Edinburgh is a wealthy place individuals and businesses should be happy to stump up more for the privilege. In the city of Enlightenment, it's apparently incumbent on us all to set an example to mankind, and like penitents who should feel guilty about any comfort or indulgence accept the cost and inconvenience of councillors' whims.
Concentrating so many arguments in the space of a week has, if anything, exposed the many contradictions which dog every argument about Edinburgh's future. We want it to be a good place to live and work, we want to attract more talent to boost the economy, but we'll make it harder to build the necessary homes and infrastructure.
Of course we need more housing, especially with over 5,000 families currently in temporary accommodation, but we don't want tower blocks or urban sprawl. We want everyone to live and work in a '20 minute neighbourhood' where everything is within walking distance, but we're going to persuade businesses to move out to make way for housing. We love our bus company, but they shouldn't be driving down Princes Street.
Read more
Similarly with tourism. We want Edinburgh to be a welcoming and popular place for visitors, just not so many of them, and we don't want the city to be a Harry Potter or Braveheart theme park (as if it is…).
We want tourists to spend money, but they shouldn't be sold junk. I marked my first trip to New York by buying a little yellow taxi, so I guess that makes me a tat-loving philistine. If they do come, they should be persuaded the Granton Gasholder is as worth seeing as the Castle and Holyroodhouse. We love the freedom and chaos of the Festival Fringe, but it needs to be brought under control.
We need overseas students to sign up for expensive university courses because we can't afford places for all the qualified locals who must be funded by, guess who, the taxpayer. But we don't want to allow more places for them to stay. We want businesses to come and invest, but they have got to be the right kind of firms who must play their part in tackling poverty so that 'no one gets left behind'. As for high-tech skilled jobs at defence specialists like Lenovo, couldn't they make air fryers or bread makers instead?
The good news is some in strong positions of influence get all this, but in a city which to outsiders must seem to have it all, the challenge is to persuade all those who make the rules that it can't.
John McLellan is a former Edinburgh Evening News and Scotsman editor. He served as a City of Edinburgh councillor for five years. Brought up in Glasgow, McLellan has lived and worked in Edinburgh for 30 years.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Spectator
a day ago
- Spectator
Public libraries deserve to shut – they've forgotten why they exist
The usual piece about public libraries runs like this. Public libraries are for 'more than just books'. They are in a desperate plight after years of cuts, or better still 'Tory cuts'. Librarians, who are heroes, struggle to go on serving their local communities. Libraries are hanging on by a thread, and because of those government cuts can't be as useful as they once were. The only solution, of course, is more money from central government to local authorities, who, of course, will dash to spend the extra millions on reinstating public libraries and not add it to other things they want to splurge on. It's tragic, for instance, that because of 'Tory cuts', Kent council is being forced to consider closing down and selling many of its library buildings in order to go on paying £350 million in no doubt vital recruitment services over four years. Something like that. My observation is that most of the journalists writing these tender-hearted pieces haven't actually stepped through the door of a public library in years. They are under the general impression that public libraries are still the wonderful intellectual resources of their youth and childhood, though typing the words 'libraries are more than just books' must give even them pause for thought. If books come so far down the list of libraries' priorities, what's the point of them? Lots of things could be community hubs – bus shelters, park benches, the fountains at a shopping centre, the café at your nearest John Lewis, the toilets at Paddington to the LGBTQIA+ community, bless them. There doesn't seem to be a lot of point keeping a handsome Victorian building going as a mere drop-in centre. As a chronic reader and the son of an old-school librarian, I can say that my belief in libraries is as strong as anyone's. I went from the children's library at Old Malden (Enid Blyton's Find-Outers series) to the one at Sheffield Broomhill, a beautiful building (Billy Bunter, J.P. Martin's Uncle, Professor Branestawm). Then there was the magnificent 1930s Sheffield Central Library, still under the redoubtable thumb of the legendary councillor Enid Hattersley, Roy's mum. After the setting up of municipal public libraries following an 1850 Act, Sheffield was one of the few to stock fiction at all: librarians have always been quite censorious people and it took most of them decades to come around to the idea that their readers might like to borrow and read novels. Sheffield was always much more liberal, and the fiction shelves were a glorious introduction to the classics as well as newer novels. I borrowed and read most of Nabokov, Conrad, Orwell, Iris Murdoch, Muriel Spark. Tantalising presences like those charming Scott Moncrieff Proust volumes with the scratchy Philippe Jullian illustrations would have to wait, but exercised an allure over me for years. And then my mum sneaked me into Sheffield University Library, with its still more thrilling holdings. By the time I got to Oxford, I knew from the first day what I wanted out of the university. It was the books in the Bodleian. It started with a sight of a line of books, in the middle, one with the words NABOKOV PNIN on the spine. I don't know why it exerted such a pull on me. That book had been there 20 years before and would be there in 20 years' time. The sight of the date stamps were magical, too, to me; the idea that someone had read The Man Who Was Thursday, and renewed it repeatedly, the year before I was born, someone I would never know and yet whom I knew, our passion shared. There is a recognisable process that has taken place in many formerly great institutions in this country – newspapers, concerts of classical music and certainly public libraries. First, an efficient and clearly defined service should be identified. In the case of libraries, this meant the making available of a wide range of interesting and good-quality books, the success and popularity of a library being in direct proportion to the number of books it holds. Secondly, the institution's purpose should be declared inadequate. In this case, the mantra that 'libraries are more than just books' starts being recited as preparation for what is to follow. Thirdly, an assault by the administrators themselves on the most valuable resources of the institution. In the case of libraries, this has meant a commitment to the principle of getting rid of as many books as possible. The practice, labelled by librarians as 'deaccessioning' or, repulsively, 'weeding the stock', rests on some untested claims. One, that old books somehow physically disintegrate, was long ago annihilated by that great man Nicholson Baker in a rare polemic against librarians. Another is that users find the mere presence of old books off-putting. Libraries are more than just books, the librarians chant, tossing their solitary copy of Buddenbrooks into the skip. The immediate result of these claims, in some quarters, is a professional principle that a portion of a library's entire stock – possibly as much as 5 per cent – should be disposed of every year. In theory, a library's current holdings could be thrown away in 20 years. How is this decided? Do we suppose that a junior librarian should be making a decision about which novels by George Meredith or Edgar Mittelholzer have the literary merit to be kept? No – they just throw anything away that hasn't been borrowed since a certain arbitrary date. The idea that books might have a value beyond recent popularity, or indeed, that librarians are there to look after their holdings, seems anathema. Go into your local library and look at the fiction shelves. You won't find Meredith or Nabokov or Proust or Thackeray or any of the good writers who have taught us how to think and feel. You might, at best, be able to order up a copy of a few of Dickens's novels from a remote stock. You certainly aren't going to come across them in an act of idle browsing. At best, you are going to find shelves of terrible paperback novels expected to be disposed of in a year or two, unlikely to appeal to anyone developing an interest in literature who wants to make their own way discovering books. Librarians have made libraries useless by throwing away most of what made them useful. I have been writing a history of the novel in Britain over the past few years, and one of the most melancholy aspects of it is that if I bought a copy of a great but slightly unfashionable classic from AbeBooks, it usually turned out to be an old public library copy. And then the fourth stage of the process takes hold. An institution, having damaged itself, is of much less use to the people who might be expected to use it. They stop using it. Forty-five years ago, the 15-year-old me would have gone to Sheffield City Library to see whether I could find a really good novel on the shelves I'd never heard of. And the library on a Saturday morning was as crowded as a good butcher or baker. No one that age would waste their time looking in a library for that now. Finally, we reach the fifth stage. Those who administer the institution notice that it is used much less than it was and no longer serves any general purpose. What, after all, is the point in going on funding these places? Times move on. They'd be wonderful places without all those frightful Tory cuts, we can assure you. Councils have so many calls on their depleted resources – all those history months to mount, all those recruitment consultants to pay. Nobody uses libraries. Let's sell them off. I have a proposal for anyone intending to bemoan the closure of municipal libraries. In reality, they closed years ago. Anyone who feels like wringing their hands, I recommend a visit to enquire how many of the dozen greatest novels in the English language are usually on the open shelves: Middlemarch, The Wings of the Dove, Bleak House, Nostromo, Mansfield Park, Tom Jones, Villette, A Journal of the Plague Year, The Old Wives' Tale, A Handful of Dust, Mrs Dalloway, Vanity Fair would be a start. Are they there? Any of them? No? Your library has no point. Sell it off and, if you can afford it, join the London Library, which never disposes of its old books. That's not what a library does.
NBC News
4 days ago
- NBC News
Women can be drafted into the Danish military as Russian aggression and military investment grows
HOVELTE, Denmark — Peering across a dense stretch of woodland outside of Denmark's capital with camouflage paint smeared across her face, 20-year-old Katrine scans the horizon for approaching threats. After nearly four months of military training, the young soldier and the rest of her unit spent early June completing their final exercises near the Danish army's barracks in Hovelte, 25 kilometers (15 miles) north of Copenhagen. Katrine and other female soldiers, all of whom spoke to The Associated Press on June 11 on the condition that only their first names be used because of operational security, volunteered for military service earlier this year. Until now, that was the only way for women to be part of the armed forces. The Scandinavian country is seeking to increase the number of young people in the military by extending compulsory enlistment to women for the first time. Men and women can both still volunteer, and the remaining places will be filled by a gender-neutral draft lottery. "In the situation the world is in now, it's needed," Katrine said. "I think it's only fair and right that women participate equally with men." Under new rules passed by Denmark's parliament earlier in June, Danish women who turn 18 after Tuesday will be entered into the lottery system, on equal footing with their male compatriots. The change comes against a backdrop of Russian aggression and growing military investment across NATO countries. Russia's looming threat Even from the relative safety of Denmark, Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine casts its shadow. Lessons from the Ukrainian battlefields have even filtered down into their training. "That makes it very real," Katrine said. Denmark's gender-parity reforms were originally outlined in 2024 as part of a major defense agreement. The program was originally expected to be implemented by early 2027, but has been brought forward to summer 2025. Col. Kenneth Strøm, head of the conscription program, told AP the move is based on "the current security situation." "They could take part in NATO collective deterrence," Strøm added. "Raising the number of conscripts, that would simply lead to more combat power." Denmark, a nation of 6 million people, has about 9,000 professional troops. The new arrangement is expected to bring up to 6,500 annual conscripts by 2033, up from 4,700 last year. Under Danish law, all physically fit men over age 18 are called up for military service. But because there are usually enough volunteers, there's a lottery system so not all young men serve. Women, by contrast, could only volunteer previously, making up roughly a quarter of 2024's cohort. "Some will probably be very disappointed being chosen to go into the military," Anne Sofie, part of Katrine's cohort of volunteers, said of the new female conscripts. "Some will probably be surprised and like it a lot more than they think they would." The duration of service is also being extended from four to 11 months. Conscripts will first spend five months in basic training, followed by six months of operational service, plus additional lessons. Military buildup The move is part of a broader military buildup by the Nordic nation. In February, Denmark's government announced plans to bolster its military by setting up a $7 billion fund that it said would raise the country's defense spending to more than 3% of gross domestic product this year. Parts of the conscript program are being financed by the so-called Acceleration Fund. "We see a sharpened security situation in Europe. We have the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. We have focus on the Baltic countries, where Denmark is contributing a lot of soldiers. So, I think it's a general effort to strengthen the Danish defense," said researcher Rikke Haugegaard from the Royal Danish Defense College. But Haugegaard notes there are many challenges, from ill-fitting equipment and a lack of additional barracks, to potential cases of sexual harassment. "For the next year or two, we will be building a lot of new buildings to accommodate all these people. So, it will be a gradual process," she added. In 2017, neighboring Sweden instituted a military draft for both men and women after its government spoke of a deteriorating security environment in Europe. Norway introduced its own law applying military conscription to both sexes in 2013.
The Herald Scotland
4 days ago
- The Herald Scotland
Genuine opportunity for business but momentum at risk of stalling
We welcome the Chancellor's £86 billion commitment to science, technology and research, as well as funding for the vital Acorn Project in Aberdeenshire, and the £750 million restoration of the Edinburgh University supercomputer. These decisions will help cement Scotland's place at the cutting edge of global industries as well as generate jobs, boost regional economies, and spur commercialisation of ideas born in our world-class universities. The UK Government's plan to increase defence spending from 2% to 2.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2027 also represents a significant economic opportunity for Scotland to expand the industrial base and create jobs in productive industries like advanced manufacturing. Our aerospace, defence, security and space sectors provide 430,000 jobs and the Acorn Project carbon capture and storage facility will create 15,000 more in construction alone - as well as making the Northeast a world leader in the low-carbon industry and attracting billions in private investment. By focusing on high-growth sectors like carbon capture, information technology (IT), biotechnology and life sciences, as well as increased defence spending, the Government is signalling the right priorities. Alongside the additional £2.9bn allocation for Scotland through the Barnett Formula, it's another shot in the arm for industrial growth. Scotland's businesses will be buoyed by the potential this unlocks. The UK Government's Modern Industrial Strategy, published last week, reinforced these investments with a plan ready for implementation. Scottish Chambers of Commerce (SCC) has long called for a joined-up approach to developing our major industries, and last week the Government indicated it was listening, giving a vote of confidence to Scotland's manufacturers and innovators. But let's be clear: without urgent, coordinated reform, this good news could be squandered if the headaches businesses face every day are not resolved: Soaring operational costs, including the hike in employer national insurance contributions (NICs) and the highest energy bills in Europe Inadequate business rates support, hitting our struggling high streets and the hospitality sector hardest The bureaucratic burdens and constraints in planning blocking progress on infrastructure projects and private investment The huge staffing and skills shortage thwarting our ambitions and ability to grow to meet current and future demand The Spending Review commitments can put the UK economy on a pathway to growth, but it's clear the Treasury needs more financial flexibility to invest in long-term assets such as transport, infrastructure, connectivity and logistics. The Chancellor should heed calls from the International Monetary Fund and leading economists to review the Government's fiscal rules. Read more Closer to home, it was encouraging to hear the First Minister, John Swinney, affirm his commitment at the Scotland 2050 conference to align policy with economic opportunity. Business desperately needs clarity and leadership, and we are starting to see this approach bear fruit. Earlier this month, EY reported that one in six UK investment projects were based in Scotland, underlining our nation's structural attractiveness to investors, second only to London. However, spending promises on building projects and transport infrastructure will amount to empty words without the necessary reforms to get the system moving at pace. Why does it currently take 58 weeks to process a planning application in Glasgow, yet just 16 weeks in Manchester? Worryingly, we are also forecast to need 700 additional planners to meet market demand with no clear plan to meet that number anytime soon. The cost of building is higher in Scotland than the rest of the UK, largely because of the Scottish Government's higher regulatory standards. Whilst this may be well-intentioned, some regulations are clearly becoming an impediment to growth. Strategic thinking is required to balance sensible regulation against economic necessity. Smart reforms are also needed across the public sector to ensure best practice and streamlined and simplified processes are aligned with key business priorities. These are all critical areas we must address if we are to maximise the opportunities for jobs and economic growth offered by the Spending Review. We simply have to take this positive momentum and capitalise on it. Read more The Scottish Government also outlined its budget priorities last week, pledging to expand borrowing for capital spending in construction and renewables, but with a welcomed emphasis on public sector reform. The Finance Secretary has expressed her intention to maximise every penny of investment through efficiencies and technical improvement, boosting productivity in the long term. This is something every sector of the economy stands to benefit from. While Scottish Government spending is significantly shaped by the Barnett Formula, which ensures that a population-based adjustment is made to align spending in devolved areas such as health or education, the Scottish Government has outlined clear priorities and a direction of travel to business. Westminster and Holyrood must now work in close collaboration to support these investments with a laser focus on delivery, removing obstacles to growth and finding solutions for businesses weighed down by spiralling costs and excessive regulation. The Scottish Chambers of Commerce and our Network are ready and willing to work in partnership with governments and help businesses navigate the business challenges and economic opportunities. Collaboration is the key to secure the growth and jobs we so badly need. Liz Cameron is chief executive of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce
