The Orange Tide hits Edinburgh!

You know, it isn't really surprising that Sir David Murray, owner of The Huns, the Sons of William and Govan's Finest, the Teddy Bears - otherwise known as Glasgow Rangers Football Club - is so keen to obliterate green belt on the west side of Edinburgh. Think about it in terms of Central Scotland sectarianism for a moment - Celtic and Hibernian FCs will have no answer to this. It isn't a coincidence that the roofs of his new development called Edinburgh's Garden District will be orange pantiles throughout. Connect these facts with the likelihood that the Purple Hun, Heart of Midlothian Football Club, may well be playing in a fantastic new stadium in the middle of the new housing scheme and you have a development which is the match of any in Scotland at the moment - with significant prominent exceptions of course.

Let's go back and look at this through my expert planners eyes. I noticed in the Press and Journal this week that people have been getting their knickers in a twist about this brave new development so what is it exactly? Well it's a vast new extension to Edinburgh that dwarfs other proposals around the city - mixed use of course. The main feature of this is a boulevard centrepiece designed for all sorts of ceremonial marching events but especially Orange Parades. Built on derelict green belt, the proposal will revitalise the whole of Edinburgh. All the right boxes have been ticked - sustainability, transport, lifestyle and economics - all wrapped up in a charette process. It's an amazing idea put together by the Reverend Andrew Duany who does most of the planning for big business in Scotland these days! Andy knows how to oil the wheels of industry!

Now some might say that this proposal has no legs. But wait! Sir David has the endorsement of Scotland's Chief Planner, Wee Jimmy Mackinnon - already! It's a fantastic coo and sums up what I have been saying over the past few weeks - the need for planning permission is becoming increasingly redundant as all major developments are effectively being approved before planning applications are submitted. Look at the Great Dr Donald Trump saga at Menie or Union Terrace Gardens in Aberdeen - the epicentre of dynamic growth in Scotland, if not Europe.

It's a trend that knocks the conservationers for six and ushers in a whole New Enlightenment for Scotland in which the sandal-wearing lefty hippies are ground down and used as fertiliser. In the case of Edinburgh Garden District, Greenwash is replaced by Orangewash tricked out in red white and blue as Masonic Temples, homes for retired policemen, retreats for homosexual football referees and Orange Lodges punctuate the residential and retail plots with Union Jacks flying from every lamp post.

At the end of the day, kites may have been flown, but people with money and power will always know what is best and how to get it. It's obvious that Wee Jimmy Mackinnon is a powerful man anyway but it seems he is also a lifelong Rangers man - not that this has in any way swayed his judgement. So there you have it - full marks to everyone involved in another fantastic Scottish development stamped all over with excellence. Personally I can't wait to see it happen.

Banzai on the waterfront!

You know, everyone in Dundee will soon be speaking a few more words of Japanese than they do at the moment. In a few years time the five Japanese words known throughout Dundee - Banzai, Sushi and Tora! Tora! Tora! - will be supplemented by U~ōtāfuronto ni howaitoerefanto, or White Elephant on the Waterfront.

The announcement this week that Kengo Kuma and Associates will build the English Museum known as V&A as the centrepiece of the otherwise derelict waterfront project is a devastating body blow for the elite forces of the Scottish architectural fraternity. Sutherland Fussey, RMJM, Gareth Hopkins and others have seen their projects kicked into the Silvery Tay by the judges. Even my own favourite, the proposal by Snøhetta, which could have continued life as an Asda Superstore after it failed to attract any visitors, has been rejected!

Well, I'm reminded of the old Japanese proverb "Ti no naka no kawazu taikai wo shirazu" or "the frog in the well doesn't know the sea". The judges of this competition are certainly the frogs in the well. To live in a thermos flask, isolated from the realities of property development is a major flaw and shows a complete lack of understanding of the forces at work in Scotland today. Everywhere we look, retailers and housebuilders are getting planning permission to build anywhere - no one will say no! Fantastic! So why bother with an English Museum when Dundee could have more shops? As I've said many times before, what will attract more people? A Superstore or a Museum - it's obvious isn't it? The loons in Brechin and Forfar won't be travelling down to see the English Museum - they will be too busy getting high in Council estates and dunking their bridies in their beer for that. But they would go to a spanking new shopping development.

So too much gazing into the darkness of the well has brought Dundee to this sorry state of affairs. A quote from Emperor Hirohito is appropriate, “We have resolved to endure the unendurable and suffer what is insufferable.” That's what the good folks of Dundee have been saying for years and this proposal won't change it. Maybe a wee trip up to Aberdeen for those in charge would help - they certainly know how to do development with style and panache!

Chop! Chop!

Impressive photie isn't it? Yesterday, and the Sunday before, I spent the day chopping wood for the fire. I was reminded by a friend on Facebook that wood warms us three times - when we chop it, when we stack it and when we burn it. I would like to add a fourth. When we burn someone at the stake with it.

Out in the garden amidst the advancing autumnal colours, every log had someone's face on it. So when my axe fell, those who had tried to derail my career over the years were dispatched to oblivion. Very therapeutic. Those women at the public meetings with their smug husbands wearing baseball caps. The people who once wrote graffiti on my desk or in the executive toilet at the office. The consultants who treated me like a lower form of life - even though I desperately want to be like them. They were now firewood.

Anyway I was angrily chopping away when I began to realise how good I felt. I felt purged and clean - but I needed more! Slowly a strategy began to develop - as an expert planner, this was easy. I looked at the potato patch. It had done its work for this year - six potatoes at the most and not a great success - but the recently turned over soil reminded me of something I read in a book.

I waited in the kitchen for darkness to fall, then waited for another hour. It was a clear moonlit night - then the time was right. I stripped naked and ran into the garden, throwing myself onto the earth of the potato patch. I lay on my back looking at the stars with my hands digging into the soft earth. I did some forward somersaults. I lay on my front writhing around, grasping at the soil and pressing myself into it. I almost lost my glasses. I felt a sense of déjà view - it was like visiting the landscaping at Ferry Village near Renfrew all over again where I was transfixed by the work of those Goliaths of Scottish design - Ian White Associates. Bleak and unsettling, tactile and spellbinding.

When it was all over I needed a bath of course then settled down to watch Desperate Housewives - the less said about them the better. All in all a great day and a grand primer for some great planning this week.

A nice wee feature

You know, I occasionally like to share some of my wide ranging planning expertise here so that I can enlighten folk who are less knowledgeable than I am so I'm going to fill you in about public art and its uses in the exciting world of town planning. Most commonly, it's what we call "a nice wee feature", often used at a "gateway" to a regeneration area or even as the centrepiece of a business park or shopping centre. Often it can be used to indicate where you might find a public toilet. Useful. That wooden frog above is a sure sign that something has happened in the area - large wooden frogs don't just appear by the roadside overnight in my experience.

Animals are very popular and one of my favourites is this lovely wee metal dog and his master from somewhere down south. Truly a triumphant work and a very meaningful piece too that resonates with the times - a boy and his dog go shopping - how very apt. So full marks and a big tick for the genius that dreamt up this one.

Now it's true that this sort of thing has been around for a while dating back to Roman times perhaps - or at least to when the Romans were driven out of Scotland by the Picts in 1066 - for example above (courtesy of Google Streetview) you can see a piece of public art over 1000 years old that commemorates that very event on the Antonine Wall near Cumbernauld. Excuse me if my grasp of history is a little sketchy here but you get the idea. This is a great wee feature if ever there was one - clever of the Romans.

But perhaps my all time favourite is this composition above - nothing whatsoever to do with the lovely young lady on the left I assure you - but a really attractive feature. Like a fireplace - but without the fire.

So you can see, public art is not only a force for good but also an excellent way of showing that town planners have been hard at work in an area. Sooner than you can say "women with blazing chip pans", public art tells you that you are in a depraved community that has placed its first foot on the ladder of progress - thanks to town planning.

Life is precious

You know, a year ago at this time I was posting almost every day about the amazing developments I had found across the length and breadth of Scotland - literally from Gretna Green to John o' Groats. I was consumed by it. I remember the frisson of running my fingers over the cladding of Tesco at Port Glasgow - austere and elemental, impeccably detailed. I was enraptured with wonder - my mouth was dry. I remember the shiver down my spine as I passed by the frozen food section. The human touch of the friendly pigeons flying around inside.

It was living proof that town planning is one of the most satisfying of the professions and it's role in enabling development is crucial to the economy of the country - and England too. At the same time, the unnecessary and uncalled for abuse that I received for my support of Donald Trump and Sir Ian Wood was cruel and hurtful, so much so that I shut down the blog for a spell.

As you all know, I have lived alone since my beautiful wife left me for her young lover, taking my son, who now calls me Grandad, to live a few miles away. I never see her - she drops off the boy with a mutual friend once a fortnight and I have to pick him up. Usually we go for a drive to a retail park - we are both happy there - for a while. She makes me feel like a leper.

But as I sit beside this electric fire with winter's icy fingers clawing at my wee house, I can't help feeling that depression is beginning to grip me again. I think of our public meetings filled with overweight, hectoring, middle class, interfering women wearing brightly coloured cardigans - and I want to attack them with my axe. Yes I do.

The bowling club closed for winter three weeks ago so I'm at a loose end but tomorrow I will use the axe to chop some wood for the fire and I will enjoy the physical activity and the violence of it all. Life is precious isn't it?

Another triumph for the UK development industry

I'm sure my regular readers were all agog this week at the stimulating news from across the border of dramatic cuts in public spending by the Tories. Particularly relevant to the exciting world of town planning was the news that CABE (The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment) was to be flushed down the toilet of common sense. This is a major boost for the nation's development industry as CABE notoriously tried to block some very fine projects and of course architects resented their interference in the design process too. So architects and developers can now do what they want - which is fantastic news isn't it?

For those working in CABE, the key words here are 'package', 'early retirement' and 'consultancy'. I've said many times before that every change in government policy conceals a human tragedy of some kind - but also an opportunity. So as the memory of CABE rots on the compost heap, let's see what this might mean for Scotland when the axe is swung next year. What sort of message has it sent to Wee Fat Alex Salmond, a man who likes to oil the wheels of industry?

First of all, Architecture and Design Scotland (A+DS) may be binned - it is the equivalent of CABE with a similar reputation for stopping things happening in the dynamic world of Scottish property development. So while there may be no more Bakewell Tarts in Bakehouse Close there will be many more fine developments throughout Scotland like Glasgow Harbour, the Tesco at Port Glasgow and of course like the amazing developments of that dynamic duo in Aberdeenshire - Sir Ian and Dr Donald! This is a certainty - property folk are just waiting to be set free and the demise of A+DS would be a gigantic first step. So when the bonfire of the kangaroos comes to Scotland they could be the first to go.

A final point. The huge opportunity for the development industry created by the disappearance of A+DS will only be maximised if planning departments disappear too. As I've suggested in recent posts, the heavy weight of bureaucracy pressing down on our marvellous development industry is a big negative for Scotland. So let's have some clear radical thinking next time round and bin the planning departments!

Scotland on Sunday is Trump's enemy

You know, I'm finding it very hard to hold myself back from driving down to Edinburgh and giving Eddie Barnes of Scotland on Sunday a piece of my mind. If I didn't have some important meetings this week, that's exactly what I would do. The newspaper has broken cover with a complete non-story, published in a deliberate attempt to smear Dr Donald Trump and the Scottish Government. The suggestion is that the Scottish Government promised Trump that his development would go ahead - before the public inquiry. Well of course they promised that! Moreover it has been placed in the newspaper by the Labour Party and by conservationists. It is nonsense from beginning to end and here's why:

1. It is the responsibility of government to act in the best interests of the country - Wee Fat Alex Salmond called in the planning application on the grounds that "the decision put the integrity of the planning process in jeopardy". How true that is! You just can't argue with that!
2. Wee Fat Alex Salmond told Trump, "You will win". Well of course he would win - everyone knew that so it didn't need a crystal ball to see that the government was going to support the development at all costs. It's called 'enabling' in our expert planner parlance.
   
3. I was personally invited to an event at Holyrood at which I heard the First Prime Minister say that he had to 'make something happen' with the Trump development. Of course. It is the responsibility of government to do this rather than stand in the sidelines while there is endless bickering between a Council and a bunch of beggars and conservationists who wear sandals and live in railway carriages in the woods.

I've been critical of this government in the past but I realise now that they have the best interests of the development industry at heart and recognise a world-beating proposal when they see one. This is why noteworthy projects like Glasgow Harbour, Edinburgh Waterfront and Inverurie Retail Park have all gone ahead despite many objections from the great unwashed. Even the McDonalds in my home town of Lenzie is aspirational in terms of environmental design - and food! All these developments have set new standards of excellence which are a model for us all to follow.

So this is a total non-story, placed in an unsuspecting press by a bunch of bitter and twister conservationists. Please bear that in mind when you are reading it.