Rosy Barnes: ‘We need to start to have a different dialogue about planning in this city’

Big development has not delivered for the Capital, says Rosy Barnes, who wants us to start thinking on a smaller level

We need to start to have a different dialogue about planning in this city. Is the obsession with major development projects really the best answer for jobs, growth and regeneration or would lower level community-friendly development that respects the Local Plan and protects what adds to life and the character of this city deliver better results?

We happen to be living in a city which has come close to being bankrupted by major development projects – particularly prestige projects. These projects have not brought money into our local economy or helped local businesses. A startling £776 million of taxpayers’ money has been spent on the trams which has seen shops and businesses in Edinburgh suffer, disruption to traffic and deliveries, unbearable noise pollution and the local economy down Leith Walk destroyed with many family businesses going under – all for a tram that will no longer even go down Leith Walk. Mountgrange’s last Edinburgh project before Craighouse, the infamous Caltongate, saw tens of millions of pounds loss for Edinburgh’s Bank of Scotland, contributing (along with many other large failed developments) to the need for the taxpayer to bail out the bank.

Big developers, a bit like bankers, have got used to operating in a world with no consequences.

Then, along came the recession. We now have half-finished developments scattered all over the city: many on brownfield sites that were supported by locals and could have benefited their local economies and communities. But, instead, developers are abandoning them and turning their attention to green space that is protected from development in the Local Plan – this is happening across the city and is set to get worse.