Yesterday, The Craighouse Partnership put up a list of FAQs on their website. But there are important questions that remain unanswered.

The Friends of Craighouse believe that, with a site as important as this one, that it is paramount that the figures are scrutinised properly. We have requested The White Young Green report – quoted at the exhibition – but The Partnership have failed to  furnish the general public with any detail or evidence to support their claims – and continue to do so.

The Friends have requested the White Young Green report through a Freedom of Information request.

It is interesting, also, to note that Mountgrange’s own website (the fund that has bought the site) aimed at its own investors, has been claiming for the past few months that there is “capacity for c.56,000 sq ft of new-build development, subject to consent.”

Curious, in light of the fact that the developers now seem to be pushing for a massive 160,000 sq feet of new build – nearly 3 times as much.  After this was pointed out to William Gray Muir of Sundial Properties at the exhibitions, the line from Mountgrange’s website was removed.

Please see my letter below to William Gray Muir about this and other matters on behalf of the Friends:

Dear William

Thank you for your reply.

I had assumed that, as Napier is a partner, that the White Young Green report – upon which  the Craighouse Partnership have based their financial projections  – was in the possession of the Partnership and therefore would be made freely available to the public. Particularly as, without showing us the White, Young Green report, you have no financial case for any new-build at all on this site.

As the public have been invited to give feedback on financial questions in your questionaire, would it not make sense to make this report freely available so that they can give you informed feedback, rather than them having to wait weeks to receive it through Freedom of Information requests instead?

Thank you for keeping us up-to-date with your community liaison forum. Please consider the Friends group to have already applied to be part of that and I look forward to your invite if the time comes. We were also informed at the Morningside Community Council meeting that you did have the date for another consultation meeting confirmed in October. Please, could you clarify this?

Also, I was curious to note that on the Mountgrange website, which has stated for past months that the site “has capacity for c. 56,000 sq.ft of newbuild residential, subject to consent”, that this line has been removed since being brought to your attention at the exhibition.

Is this because you now seem to be pushing for approx 160,000 sq feet of new-build? (The number derived from your own exhibition boards). Can you explain this monumental jump? Particularly as c.56,000sq ft is presented by Mountgrange to their investors as the maximum target – therefore considered more than profitable. I attach a screenshot of the Mountgrange website which has stated this for many months, for your interest.

Many thanks and I look forward to receiving your answers to these questions.

Best Wishes

Rosy Barnes
Friends of Craighouse Grounds and Wood

We do not like to print the full reply from William Gray Muir on behalf of The Craighouse Partnership (c/o Invicta) without his permission, however the request for the White Young Green report was refused for a second time and we were informed that they may no longer reply to individuals (despite the Friends being a group of a few hundred) and would be communicating via newsletter and website from now on.

In relation to the figures on Mountgrange’s website, we were told that “this figure was quoted in error by the website editors”.

A curious use of words. And worth looking at more carefully.

They do not say the number was wrong.

Neither do they say the website editor quoted a completely erroneous figure. (After all, if the web editor made a typo – a “correction” would surely have been issued, as would be expected of a mistake of such enormous magnitude. Whereas, the line has merely been removed.)

No, they say the figure was “quoted in error”.  Can one conclude from this that the error lay not with the figure itself – but with the fact that this figure was quoted in full view of the general public?

We would be delighted if The Craighouse Partnership would like to clarify this issue for us. Perhaps in one of their newsletters.

The Freedom of Information deadline should be up by Wed so we hope to be able to update our members soon about further issues.