NEWS: Hotel will cast West End into darkness

Mark McLaughlin
Edinburgh Evening News
June 2, 2009

AN EXCLUSIVE West End street will be "cast into darkness for four months of the year" if the GBP 200 million Haymarket hotel development is given the go-ahead, Scotland's former solicitor general has warned.

Lord McLuskey, a West End resident and outspoken critic of the scheme, cross-examined Edinburgh Council design advisor Lawrence Dowdell on his part in the hotel's design and approval ahead of city conservation group The Cockburn Association's attack on the plans, set to begin today.

Armed with local skyline charts provided by the association, Lord McLuskey showed that the sun would not rise above the 17-storey hotel in the winter months, consigning Grosvenor Street - home to the exclusive Hilton Grosvenor Hotel - to shadow.

Mr Dowdell, who was giving evidence at the two-week public inquiry into the plans for the disused Morrison Street goods yard, conceded that such an outcome was "likely".

Lord McLuskey was addressing Mr Dowdell as a private resident whose property will be adversely affected by the hotel.

However, The Cockburn Association has also lined up a host of experts to challenge the council's case for permitting the hotel to go ahead, a decision that was called in by the Scottish Government.

Among the names set to give evidence are consultant architect and town planner Charles Strang and Professor Herb Stovel, one of the world's leading authorities on conservation.

Prof Stovel is set to challenge Edinburgh Council's argument that the plans would have no bearing on the city's World Heritage status as it sits outside the World Heritage zone.

"It would be hard to argue that any development located 30 feet from the perimeter of a World Heritage property, should not maintain harmony with the flanking elements of the immediately adjacent World Heritage property," Prof Stovel is to tell the inquiry. "The site cannot be regarded as a 'no man's land', open to any form of development."

Mr Strang was set to tell the enquiry that the development is, in his opinion, in contravention of no less than 23 local policies pertaining to planning and conservation in the city.