Yesterday, we learnt that LA&P are no longer part of the Craighouse Partnership. This begs the question, can any of the other companies in the Craighouse Partnership leave the consortium? No explanation has been given of why or how LA&P left the consortium, despite our repeated questions. Did they decide to leave, or were they asked to leave? We don’t know.
Which other companies could leave the Craighouse Partnership?
As part of our commitment to keep the community informed about the Craighouse development, we’ve been having a look at some of the companies involved. When Napier University released their press briefing on 25 March 2011, one company, LA&P listed as one of the partners in the Craighouse Partnership was described as having “a wealth of experience in dealing with residential schemes being delivered amidst important heritage and listed buildings” and, we were told, “will oversee the plans for the site”.
You can see the full brief here.
However, we’ve been unable to find out any further information about LA&P and they seem to have disappeared from view.
We need to demonstrate the support of the community when we say that we want the green space preserved for the public, and that free access should continue. We did that with our photo for the press when several hundred people turned up to be counted, and now we are doing it through a petition. The first day of the petition, we got over 580 signatures. That was a great start, and now we need your help.
If you want to join us going out an collecting signatures, please let us know when you are available by emailing: petition@friendsofcraighouse.com. Alternatively, you can download the petition from our website here and collect signatures yourselves. If you do collect signatures, please make sure to tell us about where you are collecting (so we don’t double up) and send us the signed pages afterwards (again, email: petition@friendsofcraighouse.com). Don’t worry if you don’t get loads of signatures, it all adds up in the end!
Community Councils' site visit
In a further update of our productive engagement with local Community Councils, on Thursday 27 October, Friends Of Craighouse led representatives from Craiglockhart, Morningside and Merchiston Community Councils on a fact finding tour of the Craighouse Campus.
The Friends of Craighouse launched its petition today. We were meaning to bring you lots of entertaining photographs – setting up the stall, the posters laid out, the clipboards…as it was, people were coming up to us and wanting to know more before we managed to get the stall fully up and running! So photographs rather slipped from our minds. However, here is a picture of people gathered around our little table to find out more.
I am delighted to announce that we collected 582 signatures in just one day! Whoop!
Last night we posted a piece revealing that the statutory feedback date for the public consultation is already past and was on the 13th Sept.
[Update: after we wrote this, we got a commitment from the developer, which you can read here]
We had promised our members that we would try and find out more about the planning and feedback process and hoped to be able to post details on the website. Unfortunately, even the simplest questions end up requiring huge amounts of detective work. Take, for example, our simple desire to find out when the deadline for feedback for the public consultation is.
After weeks of trying, we were finally given an answer by the planners.
To our shock, and that of our members, we have been told it was on the 13th September, less than 2 weeks after the first exhibition.
Article in the Evening News in which we talk about why the spectacular Craighouse landscape is so important, our reply to John Bury’s statement about access and implications for green space across the city. You can view if you click the following:
A red admiral resting where the developers want to remove woodland for new housing
In the last few weeks, Friends Of Craighouse have engaged with Local Community Councils to highlight our concerns about the potential excessive development, loss of protected green space and loss of public access at Craighouse Campus.
We have attended the regular monthly meetings of 3 Community Councils and made presentations at each, these being Morningside, Merchiston and Craiglockhart Community Councils (the Craighouse Campus actually sits in Craiglockhart CC area).
A magnificent beech at Craighouse in full autumn colour
We are delighted to announce that we have the support of the Woodland Trust who will be supporting the Friends, are providing a statement and have offered to promote the work of the group on their social media sites to help raise the profile of our work.
These are our images showing what the latest proposed buildings will look like
Friends of Craighouse Grounds and Wood 