Edinburgh’s World Heritage status challenged

EDINBURGH should be stripped of its UNESCO World Heritage status – that’s the view of David Black, the first chairman of the city’s Southside Association, which monitors planning and environmental developments in the city.

He is writing a report that deplores planning and architectural decisions affecting the city’s historic centre, and plans to send it to the international heritage body in New York with a request to have Edinburgh's UNESCO status – granted in 1995 – removed.

‘At the time, Edinburgh was seen as a prime example of an old town and new town co-existing well,’ Mr Black told the Edinburgh Evening News. ‘But since then we have seen one poor planning decision after another, from St Andrew Square to the Parliament building and Princes Street.’

Decisions which he finds particularly distasteful include plans to turn the 190-year-old Royal High School into a five-star hotel.

‘This is not just some old fogey talking who doesn’t like anything modern. I like the Festival Theatre, for example. But I think there is a balance to be struck between preserving the best of the new – and what we’re getting generally is not the best.’

Of the 28 UNESCO World Heritage sites in the United Kingdom and its overseas territories, only three are entire cities or towns: Edinburgh, Bath, and St. George on Bermuda.

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Picture Credit: "Scottish Parliament" by gren - Self-published work by gren via Wikimedia Commons