Tag: local

Planning and Building Standards Service COVID -19 Update (25 March 2020 edit)

In light of the ongoing situation regarding COVID-19, the restrictions on movement placed on the country by the Prime Minister and the First Minister are a very clear message for all of us to stay at home unless absolutely necessary. This will mean changes to our everyday work.

  • The Local Review Body scheduled to take place on Wednesday 25th March has now been cancelled, and will be rescheduled for a later date as soon as practically possible. If you have any queries regarding the Local Review Body, please email localreviewbody@edinburgh.gov.uk
  • We will not be able to carry out the necessary publicity on applications submitted as required by the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997.  At this time we have suspended site notices, neighbour notifications and the weekly list will only include those applications which do not require publicity nor neighbour notification. This will be reviewed in three weeks time. This will affect the determining of applications.
  • Where site visits cannot be carried out we may still be able to process applications using photographs sent to us where appropriate. These will be requested by our officers where required.
  • Applications where the neighbour notification period has ended before 20th March can still be determined. Where the neighbour notification period ends after 20 March, we will not be able to determine your application until such time as we can return to our work in person. All agents should be notified as appropriate. This applies to all new planning, listed building consent or conservation area consent applications.
  • On this basis, and in light of these challenging times, any applications now submitted will be worked on as much as resources and procedures allow. We are working with the Scottish Government to understand how we can do this as effectively as possible.
  • Certificates of lawfulness, advertisement consent, tree preservation orders and trees in conservation area applications do not require publication and can still be determined as usual.
  • We are still not currently able to process paper applications or accept application payments by phone. Applications must be made through the ePlanning service.

We will continue to review our position and keep you up to date as our service adapts.

Removing ‘A’ boards from our pavements & reducing clutter

 

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Since November, a citywide ban on ‘A’ boards and other temporary adverts has been in force. This is primarily to improve pedestrian safety and accessibility on our streets. It is part of wider efforts to help create a more welcoming, clutter-free city for everyone.

Environmental Wardens are working closely with businesses and are reporting good results across the city. Businesses have adapted to the ban in a variety of ways, including by incorporating advertising into barriers around tables and chairs (for which they have a licence) or putting a sign on their walls or windows (if allowed).

There are lots of places to go for businesses looking for more information on advertising or guidance to help them through this ongoing change;

As you can see from our photo gallery above, removing A-Boards can help make a huge difference for people with mobility issues getting around Edinburgh. By removing barriers on our pavements, it is hoped that people can move more freely across the city and businesses will feel the benefit from shoppers attracted by better pavements.

If you wish to report any A-Boards which you feel should be looked at by an Environmental Warden, please email us at aboards@edinburgh.gov.uk.

Do you have a problem with a neighbour’s high hedge?

We might be able to help. If you’ve been unable to resolve the problem with a neighbour’s high hedge you can apply for a High Hedge Notice.

Read our guidance here, and once you have followed the required steps in the guidance, check out this video which shows you how to make a High Hedge application online.

Development in Bonnington

Historically, Bonnington was a milling village that grew around the Water of Leith. The area has since been home to business and light industry, including the John Lewis depot, the former Crawfords Biscuits warehouse and the original Chancelot Mill (before it moved to Leith Western Harbour in the 1970’s).

Bonnington MillIn more recent years, as industry has declined, the area has had great potential to provide new homes for the city.

We created a long-term development brief for the area in 2008 to ensure that:

  • housing development did not prejudice existing businesses;
  • modern, flexible business space was still provided in the area; and
  • better connections were made between Bonnington and wider pedestrian routes, cycle networks and green spaces.

Our development brief covers the area highlighted in purple below. It’s been almost ten years since its publication – so, what has happened in that time?

fig 4b

Well, there’s been a wealth of redevelopment, and the area is almost unrecognisable when compared with the 1929 aerial shot. Development in Bonnington has been residential-led and there’s potentially a lot more to come.

We recently had a walk around Bonnington to visit completed development, sites under construction and sites currently being assessed for planning permission. These included:

  • Flaxmill Place

flaxmill-pl-comercial1.jpgLocated just off Newhaven Road, this development for 130 residential homes was granted planning permission in November 2012. The development was finished in 2016, on the site of the former Johnston Print Works. Although space for light industry has not been formally reinstated, business space has been provided. One unit is currently occupied.

 

  • Bonnington Village

Works to construct Bonnington Village are underway, just off Bonnington Road Lane. The development was granted planning permission in 2016 and works began in May 2017. The development will provide 214 homes, as well as two commercial units that will lie adjacent to the existing flats at Tinto Place. An improved north to south pedestrian link will also be delivered through the development.

  • West Bowling Green Street

The building works for 98 residential properties on West Bowling Green Street began in July 2017. As you can see in the plans below, both commercial and retail space is to be provided on the ground floor units fronting Anderson Place. The development will also deliver the foot way and cycle way we initially proposed in our development brief. You can see this route in Figure 4b above.

WBGS

As we move towards our next Local Development Plan, LDP 2, we will be reflecting on how well our policies for housing and employment space have been working. New employment space is being provided in Bonnington, however, it is not as flexible as the older industrial and storage buildings it is replacing. We still think there’s a need to provide industrial space in this part of the city.

The LDP 2 process is likely to include reassessing our approach to such areas, to ensure that a variety of employment sites are available across all parts of the city.

We will be looking for your input soon as we prepare to plan for the future of Bonnington and the wider city. In the meantime, you can view and comment on the range of planning applications we receive for the city on our planning portal.

The Edinburgh Local Development Plan Turns One!

We officially started using our current Local Development Plan (LDP) on the 24th of November 2016. This means that this time last week, our LDP turned one!

In celebration, we thought we would write a brief blog post to share with you five things we have achieved in the first year of our LDP.its my birthday

  1. The LDP allocated almost 700 hectares of additional land for housing. This land could accommodate up to 10,000 new homes, meaning that we’ve now identified enough land in the city for over 31,000 houses.
  2. Of the newly allocated land, sites that could provide over 3,000 homes are already under construction and an additional 1,000 units have received planning consent.
  3. We adopted five Supplementary Guidance documents covering the City Centre Retail Core and the Tollcross, Corstorphine, Leith and Bruntsfield & Morningside Town Centres.
  4. We updated two planning guidelines – the Edinburgh Design Guidance and Development in the Countryside and Green Belt.
  5. We carried out our first feedback survey that asked you how effectively you’d been involved in the creation of the LDP. We look forward to engaging with you more as we move towards our next LDP, LDP 2.

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