Planning Permission in Edinburgh

This essay will concentrate on the specific period of the suburb development and planning permission in Edinburgh. The period that will be covered in this essay starts from the end of slums clearance in the Capital, moving towards after war period and touches on 1960 - 1970s. It will concentrate on the biggest expansion of suburbs in Edinburgh, period of high rise tower blocks and after all it will try to answer questions; why and how it was planned and developed Edinburgh in the specific period of time. Finally, this essay will include my personal reflection on what has been learned from the course and how that can help me in my future profession.

'It was a magnificent thing to watch, as I did many times, whole streets of slums being demolished - all those decades of human misery and degradation just vanished into dust and rubble!' - Councillor Pat Rogan (Edinburgh Corporation Housing Chairman, 1962-5), 1987.

The housing and health problems of the majority of the Scottish population forced the government to take an action and allow further expansion of Edinburgh city in around 1930s. The current state of slums dwellings were in really poor conditions, majority of them were overcrowded, thus, unhealthy condition and damp caused diseases and the high death rates in the Capital of Scotland. Between 1920 and 1930 Edinburgh council state began the slum clearance in Edinburgh and started to build council houses in the outskirts of the city. This was the first major suburban expansion in Edinburgh; resulting in rehousing of all low income people into a new higher standard houses to improves standard of living.

The first major expansion in Edinburgh began in Chesser (1919), where for these days you can see one of the oldest building two-apartment houses from that particular period (pic.1). The material that has been used in this time was mainly stone structure. In addition, it is worth to mention that, in Edinburgh 75% of the housing built between 1918 and 1932 were mainly coming from the private sector; and one of whom became the fastest growing and dominated builder in Edinburgh was James Miller. Furthermore, the private sectors has own the enormous amount of land in Edinburgh allowing further expansion. Therefore, the private sector was also responsible for decisions about the style and architecture of the dwellings, so it could be build fast and cheap, at the same time making private sector grow more powerful and wealthier. In that particular period there was not any proper planning system in Scotland, which could control the way the land was used, so that highly contributes to the expansion of private sectors and unchanged style of the building structure.

From my perspective it is already noticeable that the lack of the control over the private sector from the government led to a significant disproportion between low income classes and the middle class people. As for the further expansion there was a diversification between classes. Thereby, higher income people were located in better style bungalows (pic.2) with much bigger private space further away from the city centre whereas the lower income classes' people where located in two- to four- storeys apartments/flats (pic. 3).

'Today, more than 50% of dwellings in Scotland date to the post-war period. Together with provision for health under the newly formed National Health Service, social housing stood at the core of welfare state planning throughout the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.' (The Scottish Poetry Library, Edinburgh (1999)).

In the post-war period architecture and co-ordination of housing were changing. Houses were moving away from the stereotypical dwellings. Properties were increasing in their size and facilities that they were fitted with (kitchens and bathrooms).The surplus of aluminium and steel after the Second World War mainly drove towards prefabricated system. In addition, the state was mostly responsible for coordinated demand on housing in Edinburgh. Although, the whole industry still remained private-owned. One of the characteristics developments in that time was a huge emphasis on the public space, which showed design of public gardens around property, squares and shopping centres. These examples still remain in some parts of Edinburgh, especially in the Chesser area (pic. 4&5) and Stenhouse where for these days people can see that kind of design from the post-war period.

It could be said that design itself is really unusual from the rest of the country or even it could be say completely unknown for the some parts of Europe. As an example, a few countries that I've visited or lived in (especially Poland) never had or have any similar design, like squares or garden area in the middle of development to socialize people. In addition, the majority of space in Poland is filling with the houses, or garages. The only socialised space for the occupancy is community garden situated on the back or front of the house which in majority of time was mainly used as a dry up place rather that gathering place for the community.

In Edinburgh itself, an open space like that were designs to bring people together, to work as a community, to centralised and to provide the feeling of a low density village. Back to the times after Second World War, which I believe worked really well; the shopping situated right below properties were brining an extra income and work place, nevertheless garden squares were used as a playground for children. However, nowadays majority of them are enclosed and unused, shops have been closed due to new supermarket chains causing closer of a small retailer; thus, leaving an empty property, garden area is fenced off and rarely used, but I believe that could be due that the majority of them have been used as a round abound, so I will say it is rather unsafe than pleasant place to spend time or let to use as a playground for children.

The other area in Edinburgh which is really characteristic for that period of that time is the Sighthill area (pic. 6). The dwellings in that particular area were built by the new organisation called Scottish Special Areas Housing Association (SSHA). Scottish special Areas Housing Association was founded in 1937 and the main aim was to provide a good quality social housing. The main aim for Scottish Special Areas Hosing Association was to employ both, architects and engineers and also it will use non - traditional method. Non - traditional method means, which it used non-skilled, unemployed labour and it should employ both private contractors and its own direct labour force. The SSHA has managed to build a significant number of dwellings in the whole Edinburgh, using new type of a four apartment's