Thursday, October 12, 2006

Where the streets are paved with gold

It's official. I work in the most expensive street in Scotland. It's called Chalmers Street and the carpark at the foot of it has just been sold for nearly £10 million. When I say carpark, don't be having visions of a multistorey edifice with wardens and CCTV. I'm talking 0.8 acres of open, gravelled ground with a parking ticket dispenser in the middle. So why the hefty price tag? Across the road, they're demolishing the old Simpson's Maternity Hospital, and converting the old Royal Infirmary into an upmarket estate of luxury apartments and leisure facilities to be called Quartermile (because it's a quarter mile from Edinburgh Castle). It is also next to the Meadows, the large public park in the middle of Edinburgh. So if you build fifty to sixty apartments and sell them for £1 million each, you're going to make one heck of a profit.
The problem with this from my point of view, is that just up the hill is the Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion, where I work. £10 million would come in very handy for the Lothian health trust...

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