Post
by seanie » 06 Oct 2011, 22:29
Of course the "25% of Portobello's parkland" has been discussed before.
PPAG want a suitably shocking figure for the loss of local parkland, but not too shocking.
Tell people it's 25% and the reaction might be; "Oh, that's awful".
Tell people it's 50% and the reaction might be; "Oh, that doesn't sound right".
Now if you look at local parks within reasonable proximity to the site then yes, you're looking at something over 50Ha, with the school taking up less than 10% of that. So how to get that percentage up?
They’re obviously going to discount the Jewel and Bingham. Even though they’re relatively close to the site, and so clearly relevant in terms of the impact on amenity, they’re in the Craigmillar ward. So the Portobello Park Action Group couldn’t give two stuffs about them. That’s why they suggested them as suitable alternative sites for the school back in 2006.
They probably would’ve liked to have excluded Figgate Park on the basis that it’s not in Portobello either; it’s in the Duddingston ward. However, most people would regard Figgate as a local park, a pretty outstanding one at that, and if the percentage they come up with is too high people might start querying what’s been excluded. Also PPAG did get a lot of strife for suggesting it as a suitable location for St John’s; on “the flat, featureless bit of ground” that now contains the wildflower meadow. So reluctantly they’ve included it to avoid awkward questions.
But they’ve then excluded the 14.4Ha of Portobello Park that has the golf course on it; it’s not ‘precious parkland’ to the Portobello Park Action Group because of the pesky golfers.
That leaves;
Rosefield Park - 1.34Ha
Brighton Park - 0.86Ha
Abercorn Park - 0.79Ha
Portobello Community Garden - 0.13Ha
Straiton Park - 0.35Ha
Joppa Quarry Park - 2.42Ha
Figgate Park - 10.97Ha
Portobello pitches – 5.60Ha
That’s 22.46Ha, of which the 5.6Ha of the Portobello Park pitches are 24.9%.
