City councillors rejected plans to a build ‘six-star’ hotel around the Category-A listed Royal High School in Edinbrugh after public objections, so the developers have asked Scottish ministers to intervene.
The Guardian writes:
Urbanist Hotels and Duddingston House Properties want to build a ‘six-star’ hotel in and around the former Royal High School, a grade A-listed neoclassical building on Calton Hill regarded as a jewel of Edinburgh’s world heritage site landscape. After their proposals to erect two large modern wings on either side of the old school were rejected unanimously by city councillors in late August, the developers confirme.. that they had asked ministers to order a full planning inquiry.
David Orr, the co-founder of Urbanist Hotels, said: ‘We remain wholly committed to delivering an outstanding scheme for the old Royal High School, reviving a building which has been allowed to slip into a state of disrepair and neglect for nearly 50 years.’
… The scheme is being opposed by architecture and conservation bodies, including Edinburgh World Heritage Trust (EWHT), the official guardian of its UN listing, the government agency Historic Scotland, the Cockburn Association and the Scottish Civic Trust.
Cliff Hague, chair of the Cockburn Association and professor emeritus of planning at Heriot-Watt University, said the hotel proposal breached planning and local development policies designed to protect the world heritage site. Hague said: ‘Probably more than any other building, it symbolises the Edinburgh Enlightenment. It is a neo-Grecian school and it was designed as a school; it is a temple to learning. So to diminish that for a building which could be in Croydon – no offence to Croydon – but which is not definitive of that tradition but definitive of a global hotel brand, is just not appropriate.’
Designed by Thomas Hamilton, the Royal High School was opened in 1829 and occupied by the school for 130 years, but after it relocated to a new greenfield site on the city’s western outskirts in 1968 the building fell into disuse. Close to the Scottish government’s grade A-listed headquarters at St Andrew’s House, the Royal High was mooted as the ideal home for the new Scottish parliament. After the site was deemed unsuitable, in 2009 the council granted Duddingston House Properties a long lease to take over and develop it after an open competition.
… Hague said money should not be allowed to win this time. The Hamilton building ‘is so exceptional you can’t judge it against any other normal measure’, he said, even the promise of ‘high rollers who wouldn’t come otherwise and who will spend, spend, spend’.
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