Craighouse

For the last day of our staycation, we decided to visit Craighouse, the old Napier University campus that is currently in limbo as the Friends of Craighouse battle to prevent it being inappropriately developed. The old historic university buildings (which started life as hospital buildings) are surrounded by meadowland and woodland which borders onto Craiglockart Hill.

On a hot sunny day like today, one of the nicest aspects of the site is that you can wander round the hot sunny meadow

then retreat into the shade of the woodland:

We were delighted to see three species of bumble bees enjoying the flowers in the meadows, including common carder bees and this red bottomed bumble bee:

There were also some hoverflies at the edge of Craiglockart Hill

It's a lovely area for a wander and it's shocking that Edinburgh Council seems to be bending over backwards to enable developers to build on the green areas of the site as well as the built areas. The council recently changed the conservation and nature protection status of the area, so that it now seems that there is no protection against inappropriate development. This is particularly bad news for the pipistrelle bats which live in the area and are a protected species.

The historic buildings on the site need to be developed to prevent them falling into decay and disprepair. The problem is that whereas a century ago they were ideal hospital buildings and more recently ideal university buildings, the needs of institutions like that have changed and it's likely that the buildings will ultimately be converted into housing or offices.

The issue is, how to do this without damaging the lovely area round about?

You can find out more about the issues from The Friends of Craighouse.

If you're in Edinburgh, do make a point of visiting Craighouse, while you still can. The developers seem intent on trying to keep people away from the buildings, but at the moment there seems to be full public access to the grounds from all entrances.

Thanks to the Friends of Craighouse for including my hoverfly photo in their recent round up of photos of the site. 

As ever, red text in this post contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.