(No offence intended to our good neighbours...)The Royal
The Royal
Noticed F.E.Macdonalds have the contract and are working on the Royal. People ask me what's happening with it and I have no idea why they think I'd know, so can anyone tell me?! I know there've long been plans to turn it into flats, once rejected because of the already significant parking problems on Bath Street, but we know these days such petty considerations are beneath the planners' noble housing ideals, especially when it comes to Bath Street <grin>... Will it be more fancy flats, or can we look forward to a return to the much-missed days of sunny afternoon barbecues accompanied by the wonderful soundtrack of the karaoke...?! The top of Bath Street is becoming almost respectable again!!! (No offence intended to our good neighbours...)
(No offence intended to our good neighbours...)-
Guest
Application granted in January 2003 for:
"Conversion of hotel to form seven residential flats including internal alterations, formation of new entrance and windows on gable and new internal stair (as amended)"
This information is from the new planning portal, which anyone can access at www.edinburgh.gov.uk\planning
Agree, Bath Street is on the up. I think containerisation has made a big difference and I don't think many will mourn the passing of the Royal in its latter days. Hopefully, someone will get on with replacing the Suite Factory before long and the last couple of shops at the foot of Bath Street will be converted to ground floor flats. I believe that work on the villa half way down is scheduled to start in the Spring. Think I heard that Portobello CAB is considering one of the vacant shop premises at the top? The new Chinese restaurant looks pretty classy and that just leaves the 'monstrous carbuncle', which has a life of its own elsewhere on this board.
"Conversion of hotel to form seven residential flats including internal alterations, formation of new entrance and windows on gable and new internal stair (as amended)"
This information is from the new planning portal, which anyone can access at www.edinburgh.gov.uk\planning
Agree, Bath Street is on the up. I think containerisation has made a big difference and I don't think many will mourn the passing of the Royal in its latter days. Hopefully, someone will get on with replacing the Suite Factory before long and the last couple of shops at the foot of Bath Street will be converted to ground floor flats. I believe that work on the villa half way down is scheduled to start in the Spring. Think I heard that Portobello CAB is considering one of the vacant shop premises at the top? The new Chinese restaurant looks pretty classy and that just leaves the 'monstrous carbuncle', which has a life of its own elsewhere on this board.
The Royal
I'm all for the Royal Hotel being put to better (and prettier) use. However, this is supposing that the flats are let/sold to decent occupiers and not given over the private landlords who fill them with not quite so law abiding clients as has happened in other parts of Portobello. There seems to be no control over the kind of people who are put into these properties and I know of a few instances (myself included) where your nice neighbours are suddenly replaced by people you'd rather not know!
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Surrealist
Re: The Royal
Er, just your fellow human beings on the planet ?Epykat wrote: There seems to be no control over the kind of people who are put into these properties
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Surrealist
My goodness. How exactly would you propose testing people who wanted to rent accomodation in order to match up to your personal criteria ?
I think you have a less than progressive attitude to people with substance abuse problems. Also, describing people as "wasters" is very vague, and similarly offensive.
I think you have a less than progressive attitude to people with substance abuse problems. Also, describing people as "wasters" is very vague, and similarly offensive.
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Guest
That's a very sweeping statement! Are you implying that only people from Merchiston don't want to live beside drug abusers or is it just that those of us not on the border with Joppa should be happy to live with them?Surrealist wrote:....or maybe not. Epykat seems to have slunk off back to Merchiston.....
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Guest
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Surrealist
Firstly, there's a big difference between my semi-humourous statement that I live "near the border with Joppa" - which was more a Socratean commentary on arbitary boundaries than an attempt to bask in the percieved glow of a better neighbourhood - and coming out with truly sweeping statements which label people as "junkies and wasters".Epykat wrote:That's a very sweeping statement! Are you implying that only people from Merchiston don't want to live beside drug abusers or is it just that those of us not on the border with Joppa should be happy to live with them?Surrealist wrote:....or maybe not. Epykat seems to have slunk off back to Merchiston.....
I am, however, directly comparing you to the kind of middle-class "waster" like Robin Cook, who recently (if I remember correctly) used his personal security as the reason to not let students move in to the same stair as his flat.
I would like to think that Portobello had enough love in its community to have a more open-minded approach to tackling issues like substance abuse - if this is the case, then maybe Merchiston would be a better place for somebody who makes sweeping statements like you did.
Wow, I only asked what was happening - didn't mean to start a war or anything! 
We can't expect to vet anyone who moves into an area - after all, there are plenty of people in my street who may well consider me and my family to be undesirables. However, I do sympathise with the wish to be able to do so, having a boundary wall with the most troubled building in Bath Street. I also sympathise with people with issues around substance dependence but that doesn't mean I have to be happy when they throw their broken bottles over my garden wall where my children play, or use airguns to set fire to aerosol cans against my children's bedroom wall. We have sat in our garden on a summer sunday morning to find stones coming over the wall onto our heads; we have come home from weekends away to find bricks lying on our patio, where our baby might have been killed by them had we been there. The first floor flat which has just been sold (I think) was inhabited by a disabled man who was persecuted by the other residents (or rather, the residents of three of the flats and the now sold house across the road); a gay man and his straight flat mates have been assaulted, never to mind the verbal abuse they are now used to receiving in their own stair. (But then maybe for some both examples might be undesirable neighbours too.) And the irresponsible landlord of two of these troublesome families? The City of Edinburgh Council, of course.
Having been through a lot of stress and discussions with members of the housing department and with Lawrence Marshall, I don't think there are any easy answers to the problems that we have with certain groups of people. But one of those trouble causing residents owns his flat - and it is rarely suggested that there should be vetting of people who can afford to buy - so whilst there is some reason for the feeling that problem tenants are often the main cause for concern, isn't there also something snobbish about assuming that if people can't afford to buy a home, they are more likely to be anti-social?
I don't know - I can see both sides of the argument, but I don't think squabbling and making it personal is really very helpful
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Paula (and Nicky, also subscribed, who I know agrees with me!) - from the frontline!!!
We can't expect to vet anyone who moves into an area - after all, there are plenty of people in my street who may well consider me and my family to be undesirables. However, I do sympathise with the wish to be able to do so, having a boundary wall with the most troubled building in Bath Street. I also sympathise with people with issues around substance dependence but that doesn't mean I have to be happy when they throw their broken bottles over my garden wall where my children play, or use airguns to set fire to aerosol cans against my children's bedroom wall. We have sat in our garden on a summer sunday morning to find stones coming over the wall onto our heads; we have come home from weekends away to find bricks lying on our patio, where our baby might have been killed by them had we been there. The first floor flat which has just been sold (I think) was inhabited by a disabled man who was persecuted by the other residents (or rather, the residents of three of the flats and the now sold house across the road); a gay man and his straight flat mates have been assaulted, never to mind the verbal abuse they are now used to receiving in their own stair. (But then maybe for some both examples might be undesirable neighbours too.) And the irresponsible landlord of two of these troublesome families? The City of Edinburgh Council, of course.
Having been through a lot of stress and discussions with members of the housing department and with Lawrence Marshall, I don't think there are any easy answers to the problems that we have with certain groups of people. But one of those trouble causing residents owns his flat - and it is rarely suggested that there should be vetting of people who can afford to buy - so whilst there is some reason for the feeling that problem tenants are often the main cause for concern, isn't there also something snobbish about assuming that if people can't afford to buy a home, they are more likely to be anti-social?
I don't know - I can see both sides of the argument, but I don't think squabbling and making it personal is really very helpful
.Paula (and Nicky, also subscribed, who I know agrees with me!) - from the frontline!!!
I didn't mean to start a war either!! 
The point I was trying to make was that when private landlords buy up property they are more likely to have their rent paid by the DSS and to let to multiple occupiers. Obviously I was not implying that all people on benefits make bad neighbours and neither was I implying that all multiple occupiers make bad neighbours (I do have a bit of savvy!). However, the love in this part of Portobello can only extend to decent, law abiding and considerate neighbours, which luckily most of mine are. For those who don't have these kinds of neighbours I feel truly sorry because I know from experience (my mother having lived in the same stair for 35 years and then having private landlords buy over 2 of the flats in the stair, moving in the undesirables and her doormat being set on fire as only one example) how helpless and trapped you feel. I have a great attachment to Portobello and have lived here all of my life. I really don't want to move to Merchiston (!) or anywhere else. I do however, want to bring my children up in an area where they don't have to walk past drug dealers to get to their front door, or be afraid to walk up stairs in case they fall over somebody lying on them. If some people can't understand that then I really do despair for this community.
The point I was trying to make was that when private landlords buy up property they are more likely to have their rent paid by the DSS and to let to multiple occupiers. Obviously I was not implying that all people on benefits make bad neighbours and neither was I implying that all multiple occupiers make bad neighbours (I do have a bit of savvy!). However, the love in this part of Portobello can only extend to decent, law abiding and considerate neighbours, which luckily most of mine are. For those who don't have these kinds of neighbours I feel truly sorry because I know from experience (my mother having lived in the same stair for 35 years and then having private landlords buy over 2 of the flats in the stair, moving in the undesirables and her doormat being set on fire as only one example) how helpless and trapped you feel. I have a great attachment to Portobello and have lived here all of my life. I really don't want to move to Merchiston (!) or anywhere else. I do however, want to bring my children up in an area where they don't have to walk past drug dealers to get to their front door, or be afraid to walk up stairs in case they fall over somebody lying on them. If some people can't understand that then I really do despair for this community.-
Kirstielove
- Posts: 15
- Joined: 05 Mar 2003, 12:15
- Location: Portobello
In defence of Private landlords......
When I moved into my building all the flats were owned by private landlords. The stair was kept clean, free of rubbish, noise levels were low, the entry system worked. Since the flats have been sold off and are now owner/occupier the stair is dirty and smells of urine, rubbish bags are left on the landings, the main door has been kicked in umpteen times, the entry system has been vandalised.
I, too, want to live where I don't fall over people lying on the stair or have to tip toe through pools of vomit or trip over rubbish bags or have dog sh*t shoved through my door because I've asked people to have more consideration towards their fellow neighbours.
I don't think it's fair to blame private landlords for anti social behaviour or drug dealers lurking in doorways!
Kirstie
I, too, want to live where I don't fall over people lying on the stair or have to tip toe through pools of vomit or trip over rubbish bags or have dog sh*t shoved through my door because I've asked people to have more consideration towards their fellow neighbours.
I don't think it's fair to blame private landlords for anti social behaviour or drug dealers lurking in doorways!
Kirstie
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Surrealist
Re: In defence of Private landlords......
Heh heh. "In defence of private landlords" indeed. Coming next - "In defence of landmines", "In defence of cholera" and the much awaited "In defence of George Bush".Kirstielove wrote:I don't think it's fair to blame private landlords for anti social behaviour or drug dealers lurking in doorways!
Kirstie
This thread reminds me of a Victoria Wood sketch - the one in which an elderly lady in a train compartment says nothing while a couple copulate noisily on the seat opposite, but as soon as they light up afterwards pipes up "I think you'll find this is a 'No Smoking' compartment!" .....