Plans for an Edinburgh Old Town shoe shop to be converted into a restaurant and takeaway have been revealed.
The City of Edinburgh Council validated the proposal from the developer Cairnroich Limited for the premises at South Bridge Street.
The developers say that Shoezone plan to give up their lease on the shop in June and now Cairnrioch Limited want to turn it into a restaurant.
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They explain on the planning application that in recent years, due to online shopping and the coronavirus, Shoezone joins many other shops in deserting Edinburgh’s High Streets.
They tell the council that to try and stop this loss of footfall, a new direction is needed, and suggest more restaurants and such premises may be the way forward.
The application site comprises the ground and basement levels of 88/89 South Bridge, a category B listed tenement building located within Edinburgh city centre, with this also being within the Old Town Conservation Area and the Edinburgh World Heritage site.
They say that the shop has been advertised to let for a while but there has been zero interest, but they have received a few enquiries from people interested in using it as a restaurant/takeaway.
Cainrioch Limited believe any negative factors from a restaurant would be outweighed by the fact that it would stop another Edinburgh High Street shop from lying empty.
Aurora Planning prepared a planning statement for Cairnrioch Limited and it tries to reason with Edinburgh Council and explains they will take mitigating measures to ensure they meet guidelines.
They say that they would be happy to agree to a restriction on cooking fried foods, and not letting off any odours that may disturb neighbouring properties.
And they acknowledge that takeaways raise different environmental issues than sit-in restaurants do, in particular in terms of litter, noise, longer opening hours, and extra traffic and pedestrian activity.
However, they remind the council that South Bridge is already a busy area and as such any new takeaway would not add to noise levels. Plus they say that longer opening hours than the shoe shop and any extra traffic would be not significant enough to disturb nearby residents.
A statement submitted with the application reads: “In terms of any concerns regarding potential on-street parking, whilst customers collect their takeaway, it is important to stress that it is not the role of planning to aim to control indiscriminate parking.
“However, this is unlikely to be issue in this instance given that a bus lane runs along this section of South Bridge with a bus stop
immediately outside the application site, such that it is not possible park here in any event.”
The City of Edinburgh Council are expected to make a decision in the coming weeks and months.
