Elizabeth Maginnis

Are the stars crumbling Bunty Backhander’s plan?

By The Basa ⋅ August 3, 2006 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Yesterday, with the outcry of Phil Cunningham, Eaddi Reader, Pete Irvine and Tommy Smith among other high profile Scots in the entertainment industry made the front page of tonight’s Evening News, it seems that multi-tasking Elizabeth ‘Bunty Backhander’ Maginnis’ plan to have a concert hall in her beloved Waterfront is now not quite the shoo-in.

Bunty is the chairperson of the super-secretive Waterfront project which has been denounced by all and sundry who know what they are talking about and the only supporters seem to be the property developers who are making money, Bunty and her board.  Even the staff at the project are leaving in droves with over 30% leaving in recent months.

With the entertainment stars now coming out against the plan to close the beautiful Queen’s Hall to allow the concert hall to be built at the possibe “future ghetto” that is called the waterfront and these people able to get press and also backing of their own supporters, it looks like it could well damage the waterfront plans.

The project recently came in for stinging criticism from buildings expert and the director of the School of the Build Environment at Napier University, Peter Wilson:

“I get depressed by the quality of so much of what has been built,” sighs the director of Napier University’s School of the Built Environment with a shake of his head. “Some looks as if it’s been made out of chewing gum and string. There are some good buildings around, but there are also many that are diabolically poor.”

This is not quite what we had been led to expect from the regeneration of a massive industrial landscape - among the largest projects of its kind in Britain, optimistically dubbed the Forth Riviera and claimed to be the beginnings of a waterfront to rival the best in the world.

Wilson sighs again. “The waterfront doesn’t have coherent thinking, it doesn’t have quality of design,” he says. “The developers talk a big show but they don’t understand what they are doing here. This area is being driven by property speculation, there just doesn’t seem to have been a coherent analysis of what is the biggest remaining site in Edinburgh.

“The problem is,” he continues, “ninety per cent of people in Edinburgh don’t really know what is happening down there. They hear all this talk about world-class developments but you find it’s all smoke and mirrors. What we have here so far is not world-class.”

Further comments by Architecture and Design Scotland (ADS), the public body set up as a national champion for good architecture, design and planning, has been scathing in its criticism of the latest of three masterplans presented by Waterfront Edinburgh Ltd.  They said the plans were more likely to result in “dark, windswept spaces for much of the year”. They continued:

And the daring proposal to create a new island jutting into the Forth, housing a top-class hotel and homes modelled on Dubai’s famous Palm Island was slapped down for buildings which appeared “simplistic in the extreme”, being inaccessible by the general public and “profoundly unconvincing”.

Waterfront Edinburgh’s accounts up to March last year revealed a turnover of £17.5 million and a salary bill for its ten administration and operations staff and four security staff of nearly £604,000. Despite its public accountability, its communications manager, Jane Dennison, was unwilling to respond to criticisms of the project.

Maybe now it is time for the 90% of the city who don’t know what is going on down there to start asking questions and hopefully the abovementioned leading entertainment lights will also throw their backing behind that.

This may well cause Labour councillors in the city to think twice about casting their vote for Bunty in the upcoming leadership election.  Although she has been promising them all good positions in the council with enough committees to keep her supporters in expenses for the rest of Labour’s time in power, maybe there are some with a conscience who might like to abstain.  After all, the three runners don’t leave much of a choince - Ewan Aitken who has been covering up for fraud in his department, Trevor Davies who only get’s told what his planning officials want him to be told and seems to spend most of his time writing to the Evening News letters page and of course Elizabeth Maginnis who has her hand in every pie possible so that she can afford her £620,000 penthouse apartment in her beloved Waterfront.

More Info: Stars come out in support of saving ‘brilliant’ Queen’s Hall

Random Posts you may have missed

• January 12, 2008 -- Another kicking for Nolan and his Cabal on the way.
• September 23, 2006 -- Cllr. Jack “Daniels” O’Donnell retiring for a drive
• October 31, 2005 -- Third rate station from 5th rate council
• February 8, 2007 -- City Council backs Hilton discrimination
• November 9, 2005 -- What Culture?

Rate This Post:
(click on the number of stars you believe this post should have)

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Discussion

Comments are disallowed for this post.

Comments are closed.