The former Royal High School will not be used as a site for St Mary’s Music School in a major change to plans by the Royal High School Preservation Trust, reports The Edinburgh Reporter.
image: for illustration – Fiona Newton
… Increases in cost have been cited as the main factor…
The Edinburgh Reporter writes:
The trust has announced major changes to their intention to protect the public use for the Thomas Hamilton building. The trust had entered into an agreement to create a National Centre for Music with the St Mary’s specialist school at the heart of the £45 million project.
Increases in cost have been cited as the main factor and as a result it has been decided that to progress with the major building works required to adapt the building – which was a school until more than half a century ago – into a home for the Music School would “no longer be practical”.
The council-owned property has a long planning history with opposing plans to convert it into a Rosewood Hotel thrown out by the council and on appeal.
Now, in the latest turn of events, the developer has admitted they cannot get the numbers to stack up even with the original sum of £45 million bankrolled by philanthropist Carol Grigor and the Dunard Fund (the same funding source which is paying for the new concert hall just off St Andrew Square). Further sums for the running of the school were also promised…..
Only a couple of years ago Hidden Door Festival opened the doors of the former Royal High allowing the public in to see the dilapidated condition of the interior of the building during the four or five days of the festival.
