...whereas secretly they're just now finding the empty boxes for the windows which have "NOT FOR USE IN PRECIPITATIVE CLIMATES" stuffed in a corner.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
St James Redevelopment
(596 posts)-
Posted 3 years ago #
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It's quite hilarious how incompetent the designers of this building were.
Still haven't been anywhere near the new mall, may be a while yet before I go, if ever.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Growing up in the Grange our cupola wasn't sealed. It was fine for rain but I remember at least one occasion where hail was bouncing hard enough to get back over the sill and down the stair.
By under construction do they mean they haven't yet built the drains? On opening day there was at least one roof panel which was shattered thankfully the lamination wasn't still under construction.
Posted 3 years ago # -
You can’t polish a turd, but you can clad it in bronze-coloured steel. Edinburgh’s new W Hotel is proof. Poking its faecal peak above the historic skyline, puncturing the globally cherished panorama of elegant stone steeples and spires, this shimmering pile is evidence that, despite all the Unesco World Heritage site protections, conservation group campaigns and lengthy planning negotiations, <rule 2> still happens.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Long comment from someone going by the pseudonym "Morningsider", hmmm.
Posted 3 years ago # -
“
“It seems that an American pension fund is Edinburgh’s new planning authority,” says author and critic David Black, who has campaigned against inappropriate development in the capital for years. “Democratic process has been supplanted by fiduciary duty to shareholders, seeking the maximisation of profits to the exclusion of everything else. A great city has been defaced, for what?”“
And I thought THE COUNCIL was controlled by Spokes and Sustrans.
Posted 3 years ago # -
And I thought THE COUNCIL was controlled by Spokes and Sustrans.
Who do you think controls the pension fund?
Posted 3 years ago # -
“Who do you think controls the pension fund?“
(This reply is generically about pension fundS.)
To a large extent I don’t know.
Day to day managers
Boards of people with various vested interests in financial systems.
Different legislative underpinnings in different countries.
Possibly (to a small degree) the ultimate beneficiaries.
There is also the custom and practice (and legal/rules backing) to ‘maximise returns’.
So if tobacco or oil (for instance) are making ‘good’ money, that’s where investments are made.
Obviously there are ‘ethical’ funds that avoid a(n increasing) list of ‘bad’ investments, but ultimately there’s an expectation that money will ‘grow’ and that fees and wages for those ‘looking after it’ will leave enough to pay a reward for a life of work.
Of course ‘state’ pensions are more likely to come from taxing current workers.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@fimm - yes, almost like I wrote it myself...
Also noticed that a few commenters managed to crowbar anti-Spaces for People rants in. I particularly liked the guy arguing that the Council was needlessly clogging up the roads with roadworks...and that the Council should ensure the drains have the extra capacity to cope with flash flooding. I'm beginning to think these guys might not be thinking things through properly.
Posted 3 years ago # -
“I'm beginning to think these guys might not be thinking things through properly.“
I’m wondering how much is being orchestrated.
Either ‘everyone’ really thinks SfP is the source of ALL problems/evil/a conspiracy against ordinary people and their rights/civil liberties/etc, or there are people deliberately stirring it AND (unfortunately) being believed/agreed with.
Or at least WhatsApped in small business/taxi driver/political party groups(?)
Perhaps need more high profile support from LB & emergency services etc.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@chdot, "Of course ‘state’ pensions are more likely to come from taxing current workers."
Classic fallacy that public spending is derived from taxation. This is a myth perpetrated by various governments, pressure groups like the Taxpayers' Alliance, etc. This fallacy provided the rationale for the decade of austerity we've just come through. As we've seen though, there is a "magic money tree" and it's name is the Bank Of England. There is no shortage of money to pay for public expenditure, including pensions. Expenditure is only linked to taxation because it suits various traditions of politics and governance for it be so linked. In reality, the government can create new money whenever it is required. The bailout of the banks, ongoing "quantitative easing" and recent Covid related spending should be proof enough of this simple fact. The notion that government needs to reduce the deficit, or that there is a government debt "crisis" - these are simplified political ideas, which bear little relation to what is really going on.
Posted 3 years ago # -
In reality, the government can create new money whenever it is required
Small precision:
The government can create new money provided inflation doesn't get out of control (we don't want to end up like the Zimbabwian Dollar).
Inflation will stay under control and the government can print as much money as it wants, provided there is not full employment.
Unfortunately (or fortunately), we will soon be reaching a position of full employment (witness lorry driver shortages). That means we'll have to stop printing money...
Posted 3 years ago # -
“Classic fallacy that public spending is derived from taxation.“
Yes and no.
Was comparing with pension fund pensions, which, more or less, use ‘saved’ money to provide post retirement income.
Ultimately it’s all smoke and mirrors.
Posted 3 years ago # -
I enjoy looking at the STONKS when looking at my online pension thingy.
The funds go up
The funds go down
What does it mean?
Nobody knows
Posted 3 years ago # -
Literally nobody knows these days, since most of the trades are made by black-box AIs who's functionality is unfathomable even to the token human overseers. That's why the stock exchange keeps occasionally just shitting its pants very briefly for no reason whatsoever then immediately bouncing right back.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@neddie, correct and this is one of the reasons for taxation. Tax removes money from private hands back to the government, but also helps to keep a lid on inflation.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@neddie, correct and this is one of the reasons for taxation. Tax removes money from private hands back to the government, but also helps to keep a lid on inflation.
Posted 3 years ago # -
It is hoped that the gargantuan car park will have alternative uses, too.
From the Guardian article. Like what?Posted 3 years ago # -
Nightclub, apparently. Or conversion into a supermarché. Because we really need another one of those, and there are not two within five minute's stroll of the mall.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Eh, that they've thought about alternative use at all should be taken as a win IMO, it means they consider a serious decline in car use - whether natural or forced by policy choices that really should have been made already... - a real possibility in the foreseeable future.
Government buying up existing private car parks and converting them is probably the only way we'll see proper Netherlands-style monitored bike parking facilities this side of 2050.
Posted 3 years ago # -
I'd love to see the risk assessment document for "serious decline in car use" the assumptions their economists made about ev, policy, public attitudes etc would be fascinating and probably a truer picture of the future that what ever the govt/la of the week is pedalling.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@Yodhrin, according to the Graun article the developers investigated re-using the old buildings, but apparently their panel construction made this problematic. According to the same source it was the council that wanted demolition. All vague enough to seem rather implausible.....I suppose they have to justify the thousands of tonnes of new concrete somehow.
Posted 3 years ago # -
St James's Centre - contemporous with New St Andrews House, which like Park House and Delta House in Glasgow used factory cast panels, that used 'dosed' concrete to get the panels cured and out of the moulds at a high rate
In 2005 you could crumble the concrete off the reinforcement by hand at Park House, and @arellcat has pictures of the safety netting on NSA House. Concrete of the era is all having problems, with some rather serious spalling of the M8 viaduct span-beams where they bear on the piles and cross-head beams Think Champlain House .... if not caught in time
Posted 3 years ago # -
In a similar vein, the Sixth Street Viaduct - so beloved a backdrop to Hollywood scenes in which the protagonist is chased through a long, unlit tunnel only to burst into the daylight under soaring steel arches, and slam down the sloped concrete sides of the Los Angeles River channel - was recently demolished because it had 'cancer'. A few years ago they reckoned the viaduct had a 70% chance of collapsing in the next earthquake.
In 1932 they used water from the river in mixing the concrete (the river was still natural and riparian before 1939). Seems sensible enough, but this led to a high alkali content; the alkali-silica reaction combines with moisture to form a sort of gel, which gradually cracked and crumbled the concrete. The tunnel itself was built as access for bringing the water to the concrete mixing facility that was situated under the arches to the west.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Interesting, regarding the Growth Accelerator Model (GAM):
As you can appreciate, with international investors complex structures are required to optimise the flow of investment through multiple tax jurisdictions. The complex structures are set up to minimise financial “wastage” so as to maximise the receipt to investors in their domiciled country. Investors choose to invest based on this net receipt and their confidence in the robustness of these governance structures in the development, operation and in a part of full asset disposal scenario and that the legal and procedural systems will broadly remain in place throughout the investment period.
Edinburgh St James Limited Partnership (ESJLP) is an English Limited Partnership and the main holding partnership of the assets that form St James Quarter. It is a partnership between Edinburgh St James Unit Trust (SJEUT) - a jersey based unit trust owned 75% by Stichting Depositary APG Strategic Real Estate Pool (APG) and the Nuveen UK Shopping Centre Fund (UKSCF) and Edinburgh St James (General Partner) Limited (ESJGPco) The executive board of ESJGPco control the asset on a day to day basis with powers delegated from the board of SJEUT.
Underneath this structure, Edinburgh St James Limited Partnership (ESJLP) - an English company, which holds the entire development but whilst it principally holds... [ continues ad-infinitum ]
By "minimising financial 'wastage'", do they really mean "avoiding paying their fair share of taxes in the appropriate country, thereby starving the NHS and other public services of funds"?
Posted 3 months ago # -
And councils! Companies not paying their fair share of taxes also (indirectly) starves councils of cash.
We've allowed our city to be controlled by billionaires and faceless offshore companies
Posted 3 months ago #
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