City Development

The dirty smell down Forth Ports way

By The Basa ⋅ January 31, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Sniff, Sniff – Hmmmm.

It seems that the Forth Ports masterplan for Leith Docks which they claim has had “adequate” public consultation may not quite live up to the claims.

A quick look at the website of Art In Architecture at http://www.edinburgharchitecture.co.uk gives us details of a meeting which took place last week between AiA, Forth Ports and their architects RMJM which certainly leaves egg on the face of the board of Forth Ports.

At the meeting were Nathan Thompson – Managing Director and Michaela Sullivan – Head of Planning, Forth Ports PLC, Tony Kettle – Design Director and Nathan Ward – Project Architect, RMJM Architects on one side of the table and Ross McEwan and Shaeron Averbuch – AiA Art in Architecture, Representing the JUMP Group (an acronym for Joined Up Master Planning) on the other.

The masterplan which has already been slated by the City Council’s own design tsar, Sir Terry Farrell for having “involved very little joined up thinking and little vision of scale and quality that distinguishes Edinburgh’s past urban planning achievements“. McEwan and Averbuch have also written to the council leader Jenny Dawg claiming that the RMJM masterplan for 16,000 homes in nine distinct villages offered little room for rethinking and called for a refusal of outline planning permisison and they seem to have the backing of local councillor Marjorie Thomas who is worried about design quality concerns locally.

The real problem with what Forth Ports and RMJM are putting forward was expertly put forward by RMJM at the meeting which is described in the following paragraph:

It was expressed by Forth Ports that more than adequate public consultation had now taken place with regard to their development proposals and that they believed everyone in the local community, the general public, the urban design profession and City of Edinburgh Council officers were fully aware of all aspects of their intended development strategy for the Leith Docks site. Tony Kettle of RMJM Architects implied on several occasions throughout the meeting that AiA Art in Architecture or the JUMP group did not have the experience or sufficient understanding of the RMJM proposals to comment on the live master plan framework.

Now, lets get this straight. Forth Ports are saying that there is adequate public consultation but their architects are telling other architects that “they do not have the experience or sufficient understanding of the proposals to comment“. So if architects who are working on a contra plan do not have the experience or understanding to comment on the proposals, how are the public whose daily life is affected supposed to comment? Something awfully dirty here and we hope to get to the bottom of it. Maybe Forth Ports’ Nathan Thompson can get in touch with us to clear up this nasty smell surrounding his proposals.

For those not aquainted with the work of RMJM maybe a quote from the Sunday Herald will bring you up to speed:

First it picked up the commission to build the City Palace Tower in Moscow, an admittedly stunning, twisted skyscraper 44 storeys high, which is being developed by Alexander Chigirinsky, joint head of Sibir Energy. In a country where the rise to power of the oil oligarchs at the end of the Soviet era controversial to say the least, any Western company that takes their money is asking for awkward questions.

If all that were not enough, RMJM is now pitching for business and doing feasibility studies in the borderline dictatorship of Kazakhstan. Put this all together, and the partnership based in Edinburgh’s leafy Dean Village could soon be giving Shell and British American Tobacco a run in the ethically controversial money-making stakes.

There are certainly a lot of questions to be answered by Forth Ports and it seems that their supposed public consultation is nothing but a sham. We will be happy to be corrected and will report it. This also raises the question of why the Planning Department are allowing this to continue when such a sham seems to obviously exist.

More Info: Architecture and morality
Design tsar wades in to attack city waterfront
Leith Docks Masterplan

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