Drum Property Group’s Leith Walk Proposals Get Planning Green Light.

148 New Apartments and Refurbishment of Retail Building Set to Bring ‘Much Needed Investment’ to Leith Walk Site.

Drum Property Group’s vision for the long-awaited redevelopment of a key site on Leith Walk is to become a reality following the granting of planning consent.

Drum’s ambitious proposals for Stead’s Place, near the foot of Leith Walk, were approved by the City of Edinburgh Council on Wednesday (June 2), heralding a major regeneration of the 2.9-acre site bringing much-needed investment and interest to this important part of the city centre.

The Stead’s Place site has been earmarked for development by the Council since 2008 and consists largely of an aged industrial estate and office space, together with a two-storey sandstone building facing directly on to Leith Walk.

Drum will now replace the existing industrial units with 148 high-quality apartments, including 38 affordable homes, as part of an attractive landscaped residential scheme linking to Pilrig Park and beyond. The sandstone building will be retained and refurbished and made available for commercial occupation, providing a vibrant local retail and business frontage onto Leith Walk

The planning consent is the culmination of four years of research, planning and local community engagement by Drum since the company first purchased the site in 2017. The current proposal follows a comprehensive six-month consultation programme with the local residential and business community, with almost three-quarters of those consulted either supportive or neutral about the revised plans.

Welcoming the planning approval, Graeme Bone, Group Managing Director of Drum, said:

“Drum has worked hard to ensure our current proposals are aligned with the objectives and plans of local community groups. We listened carefully to their views, enabling us to draw on the positive characteristics of the surrounding area to create a real sense of place that features a mix of private and affordable housing with a refurbished, vibrant and dynamic retail frontage facing Leith Walk."

"Our proposals will replace old and tired industrial, office and retail space with new, more flexible, higher quality accommodation for people to live, work, shop, eat, drink and to be entertained in - as well as opening up a safe and landscaped thoroughfare connecting Leith Walk to Pilrig Park.

We believe we have responded directly to the objectives and vision the community has for the site. Our proposals now offer the optimum solution for all parties, providing a refurbished retail and office parade combined with a new community of housing to the rear, set in landscaped grounds, enhancing the area’s distinctive cultural feel and identity.

Drum is now committed to ensuring the shop frontages on to Leith Walk retain the current individual style and size, reflecting and supporting the current local small trader units at the site whilst refurbishing the office suites for rent on the first floor in a revamped business centre offering."

Mr Bone added: “By retaining and refurbishing the red sandstone buildings facing on to Leith Walk, we are also contributing to the wider regeneration of the local area, providing investment to create an attractive and distinctive destination and focal point which is needed now, more than ever, as the local area recovers from lockdown and the new tram works are progressed.

Drum are now looking forward to building on the positive and productive relationships established over recent years to deliver a new development that continues the rich tradition of diversity, independence and interest which makes Leith Walk such an exciting destination in which to live, work and visit.”

The planning consent follows a previous application submitted by Drum to the City of Edinburgh in 2018. For more information on the revised proposals, visit

www.steads-place.com

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