Back in the 1980s, the BBC was all set to build a state-of-the-art television centre that would have made Edinburgh - and not Glasgow - the centre of its Scottish broadcasting operations.
Unfortunately, the multi-million pound project would never see the light of day and the capital would be left with a huge "hole in the ground" that would take more than a decade to fill.
The plans were first announced ahead of the 1979 Scottish devolution referendum, which would decide if a Scottish Assembly would be created within Edinburgh's Old Royal High School at Regent Road.
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Aware that Edinburgh would require greater broadcasting facilities and extended television coverage in the event of a Yes vote, the BBC drew up plans for a new capital headquarters to replace their ageing hub at Queen Street, which the corporation had occupied since the 1930s.
Following discussion between the BBC and district and regional authorities, it was decided that the new centre would consist of studios and offices, as well as a concert hall. Two possible locations were mooted, one at Scotland Street and the other at Greenside, with the latter eventually becoming the favoured option.
Previously a built-up area dominated by tenement housing, the large site at Greenside Place had recently been cleared and was ripe for redevelopment. It was also within short walking distance of the heart of the city and the planned Scottish assembly.
In 1976, Edinburgh Council sold the land to the BBC at an alleged cut price in the hope that the corporation would stick to its pledge. Signs were put up around the Greenside gap-site informing the public of Aunty Beeb's ambitious project, with the £9 million television centre expected to take shape in the early 1980s.
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Things would not go to plan, however. While Scotland would vote Yes to devolution in 1979, the percentage of the electorate that voted did not meet the Labour government's requirements for a Scottish Assembly to be created.
Scotland's failed devolution attempt would ultimately spell disaster for the BBC's project, with capital locals left waiting in vain for a television centre that would never arrive.
Following years of delays, the BBC's plans were shelved indefinitely in late 1985 as the broadcaster announced major cuts to its Scottish operations and the loss of dozens of jobs in Edinburgh. The announcement sparked protests and huge political outcry, as the Edinburgh authorities urged the BBC to reverse their decision, but it would make little difference.
The BBC sold the Greenside site for a tidy sum, with some £3 million going towards the refurbishment of their Queen Street studios.
The completion of the BBC Scotland's broadcasting facility at Glasgow's Pacific Quay in 2007 served to show Edinburgh what might have been. To rub even more salt in the wounds, the BBC's Queen Street studios, which had been refurbed thanks to the sale of the Greenside site, had closed five years earlier, and replaced by a small TV and radio facility at Holyrood Road.
A separate plan to build a hotel and offices at Greenside in 1989 would also fall through, with only the underground car park being finished. Known as "the hole in the ground", the huge plot of land would remain an embarrassing gap site until the completion of the Omni Centre in 2002.
Author Lawrence Lettice wrote about the BBC's Greenside headquarters debacle in his book You Can't Do That Here! This Is The BBC!: Or one man's odyssey around the fringes of radio.
Lettice, a former BBC employee at the Queen Street offices prior to 2002, was quoted by The National in 2016. He said: “We were shown drawings and designs, scale models, the works, and it was impressed upon us that this was definitely going to happen.
"Then they pulled it and sold the land and put the money back into refurbishing Queen Street.
“It was a tragedy in so many ways because we were led up the garden path. We were promised so much and, when you think of how Scotland has changed politically, having a major broadcasting centre in Edinburgh would have been a great thing, but it never happened.
“I think we were cheated in so many ways – then, when they decided to close down Queen Street, that didn’t go down well. When you think of what the BBC in Edinburgh was supposed to be and what it is now – a broom cupboard up from Holyrood – it’s very sad.”
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