November 2024 news from Councillor Neil Ross
Plans for two BT street hubs
BT has submitted plans to install two street hubs – one at Morningside Station on the railway bridge, a short distance north of the clock, plus another one near the former Bruntsfield Post Office, now Honeycomb café, in Merchiston Place. A street hub is a large advertising display which offers new technology with 5G mast capability and lots of interesting features. BT also plans to remove a few old telephone kiosks. There’s more about the plans on the Council’s Planning portal under refs. 24/05028/FUL & 24/05025/FUL. The deadline for comments is 15 November. BT has also applied for advertising consents under refs. 24/05029/ADV and 24/05026/ADV with earlier deadlines for comments on 1 & 11 November. There is more information on BT street hubs here and the Council’s Planning portal can be accessed here.
Plans submitted for the former Post Office
As predicted in last month’s e-newsletter, plans have been submitted to the Council for a café/restaurant/hotel on the site of the former Post Office. The deadline for comments under reference 24/04802/FUL end today, 1 November, and under 24/04896/CON end on 8 November. The plans can be viewed here.
City Plan 2030 approval
A slightly modified City Plan 2030 is likely to be approved at a meeting of the full Council on 7 November and adopted with effect from Friday 8 November. This will be the basis for all decisions taken on planning matters for the next few years. Work has already started on City Plan 2040. The modified City Plan 2030 can be found at item 7.4 on the agenda here.
Edinburgh Union Canal Society – AGM & Flotilla of Lights
The Canal Society is holding its AGM at 2.00pm on Sunday 3 November at the Merchiston Tennis & Bowling Club (more info here) and its popular Flotilla of Lights starts at 6.30pm at Harrison Park reaching the Leamington Lift Bridge around 7.15pm on Saturday 9 November – more info here.
RBS Bruntsfield Branch to close
The Royal Bank branch in Bruntsfield is sadly to close on Tuesday 12 November. More information is available in a fact sheet under Edinburgh Bruntsfield here.
Marchmont Flood Alleviation project end date
Pipework installation continues along Marchmont Crescent, which remains closed, and the project is expected to be completed by spring 2025. More information is available here.
Travel disruption & bus diversions
A regular feature of life in Edinburgh seems to be disruption from roadworks. To keep up with the latest utility or Council-inspired traffic delay, you can take your pick from various sources of updates and notifications here. Lothian Buses publishes diversions to bus routes and service updates here. By the way, the northbound closure of Craiglockhart Avenue for SGN is expected to last 4-6 weeks.