Planning pains

Congratulations to Edinburgh city councillors for their resounding rejection of the latest proposal to turn Thomas Hamilton’s Royal High School building into a vile and vulgar hotel. But how depressing, if predictable, to hear the developers react by saying that they intend to return to the charge with yet another plan, in accordance with the contract between them and the council which runs until 2022.

Maybe, just maybe, this contract seemed like a good idea at the time it was signed. But plainly it is so no longer. The parties to it need to recognise that its time has gone, and that to persist with it is to waste yet more time and money while the building continues to deteriorate. The developers are never going to get their hotel on this site. They need to wake up and smell the coffee, start looking elsewhere, and let the proponents of the music school proposal get on with giving the building the future it deserves.

HUGH SALVESEN Warrender Park Terrace Edinburgh

The decision by ministers to approve the proposed tennis and golf centre at Park of Keir, following many complaints about local government decisions being overridden by the Planning and Environmental Appeals Division (DPEA) shows the need for an appeals system which is independent of government (both politicians and civil servants).

The Executive should not exercise a quasi- judicial function, meaning it can decide in favour of itself. In Ireland appeals are dealt with by the “Town and Country Planning Appeals Board”. In Canada and Australia the provinces

and states use special courts, tribunals or boards for the function. In New Zealand the “Environment Court” processes planning appeals .

The case for an independent appeals system should have been raised in the recent review of the planning system. It probably was not because politicians are usually reluctant to cede power.

It is time for the “legal establishment” to press for change.

JOHN MUNRO Buccleuch Street, Glasgow