What should the Leith Links area be like in the future? Your views, please?

What should our lovely Leith Links area look like in the future? (Or, NOT look like?)

Full of Apart-Hotels, short term lets, student accommodation, HMOs? Or a balanced mixture of homes, shops, cafes and other businesses?

Edinburgh City Council has launched a “Call for Ideas” for the next round of City Planning (2040) See https://consultationhub.edinburgh.gov.uk/sfc/cityplanideas/

The consultation is currently live online but closes on September 30th. Please will you have a look, and put in your own ideas and views?

We know from bitter experience, here at the Community Council, that objections to planning applications that don’t seem healthy for our area all too often just get ignored/ rejected by the Council and the Scottish Government Reporter. Frustratingly, the developers just always seem to get their way. That’s because it’s too late (because the policies governing the decisions were made 15 years ago, when the City Plan 2025 was being drawn up!)

So what we need to do NOW, to prevent unwanted planning decisions in the future, is to try to influence the NEXT round of policies before they are made/finalised.

It’s hard to get your head round thinking 15 years ahead, but what will happen in 2040 needs to have been thought of and fed into the council planning process NOW!