The new Labour government is only a fortnight old and the sound bites are coming thick and fast. “We’ll take the brakes off Britain,” said Sir Keir Starmer on Wednesday and he even got the King at it during his speech, with the vague plan to “get Britain building.” Sir Keir must like his alliteration, because we’ve even got a Better Buses Bill.
How much substance lies behind the glib phrases remains to be seen, because reforming planning laws to ride roughshod over local concerns or force landowners to sell up below market value, as they seem intent in doing, could result in long legal battles.
So much of what is outlined – and outlines are all we have so far – doesn’t affect Scotland, but we have enough experience of throwaway targets and unachievable aspirations dressed up as ambition to be wary of excitable language at the start of a new administration.
The £1.3bn Edinburgh Region City Deal signed six years ago, for example, has certainly been good for Edinburgh University, boosting its Futures Institute, Usher Institute and Easter Bush agritech centre, but many of the other projects have not materialised.
All there is to show for £25m investment in the St Andrew Square Impact concert hall is a plan and a cleared site, and we still await the £120m Sherrifhall junction upgrade. Who knows what the West Edinburgh Transport Appraisal delivered for £20m.
The housing commitment has the most relevance to Labour’s plans, a programme to boost seven major sites including the Edinburgh Waterfront, Blindwells in East Lothian and Winchburgh in West Lothian. The 15-year delivery timescale was hardly the most ambitious for projects already underway and it has taken six years for Winchburgh to really get motoring.
The developers have faced many barriers, not least a sluggish Labour-controlled council and the reluctance of Transport Scotland, but when I visited this week, the progress is extraordinary and the quality of the homes notably high.
This is no dreary estate, but an exciting new place to live, with affordable houses built to mirror the old miners’ cottages, so there is a sense of place and continuity. Everywhere you look there are new houses, and it’s quite the transformation since the last time I visited only about six months ago.
Winchburgh Developments Ltd (WDL) should be congratulated for the lead they have taken on infrastructure, not only building the new M9 junction, but a road bridge over the railway line and access to where the new railway station should be built.
Until recently, there was nothing but excuse after excuse from Transport Scotland, and in fairness new SNP connectivity minister Jim Fairlie has responded positively to WDL’s determination and community pressure. Blockages now seem to be dissolving, money is being found, and there’s no reason the new main line halt can’t be built by the end of 2026, giving new residents vital links to their workplaces.
It has been a long, hard road, but the Winchburgh effort is the minimum needed to meet the drastic housing shortage across Edinburgh and the Lothians, and across the UK.
If Sir Keir Starmer wants to see how bureaucracy can be overcome to turn sound bites into reality, he could do worse than Winchburgh. And not an inch of Green Belt has been sacrificed.
