SINCE the launch of BuildEdinburgh around about this time last year, Granton has appeared in the site’s news round-ups several times.

Including the following:

W/e May 9 2025 - here: Chestnut Street housing shortlisted in housing awards competition;

W/e May 9 2025 - here: The Pitt warehouse opens to more than 35 enterprising businesses, creatives, service providers and community partners;

August 13-15 2025 - here: Landscaping plans for Granton rail station;

August 13-15 2025 - here: Granton Harbour planning request;

W/e November 14 2025 - here: £42m of Scottish Government funding announced for Granton housing development;

W/e November 14 2025 - here: Granton Waterfront housebuilding contract to be considered by city council committee;

W/e January 9 2026 - here: Bus journey times, West Granton to the Royal Infirmary;

W/e January 9 2026 - here: Granton flats plan approved;

W/e January 9 2026 - here: Two more consultation events, this time for Western Harbour plans;

W/e March 27 2026 - here: Community hub delivered to Granton ‘village’ for people experiencing homelessness;

W/e March 27 2026 - here: Land for sale, Granton harbour; and

W/e March 27 2026 - here: Government steps in to complete funding pot for old Granton lighthouse.

Plus, of course, a few times in the context of a proposed north-south new tram line between Granton and Little France.

Image details: copyright Mike Wilson

FOR around 13 years, Granton was pretty much my whole world.

Now, it’s the Mediterranean, which I’ll explain in a moment.

Operating out of the old lighthouse, on West Shore Road, myself and a handful of others had the temerity to call ourselves a Community Development Trust.

We had a constitution, big ambitions and what we felt was vision. We had even been awarded at least three grants - from Development Trusts Association Scotland, The National Lottery and the then ‘office of the design leader’ at The City of Edinburgh Council.

Between circa 2009 and 2017, 4CDT dreamed up all sorts of ideas for the area. My commitment to it was absolute, even though I was living in Leith at the time.

My early career had been involved working for the founding members of the development corporation that helped shape London Docklands, and that experience provided me with an unwavering belief in the need for designing a place holistically, down to the last inch and led by people living locally.

As I understand it, there is still some form a masterplan for Granton. There certainly have been others in the past and it once even had an over-arching body - called the Waterfront Edinburgh Ltd - which is now long consigned to the pages of history.

And into that mix - back in the day - we trotted along with what we were convinced was a no-brainer of an idea.

It was for an outdoor swimming pool, bordered by shipping container artist studios, on the site of a former walled garden that we imagined would, in time, be able to host an international garden festival.

Rather pretentiously, perhaps, we titled the whole project, Granton-sur-Mer.

Sadly, I soon began to lose count of the number of meetings we had with so-called decision-makers, and - indeed - the number of times we were promised a physical role that, in the end, just evaporated into thin air.

Quite how we even got so close still amazes me, that tiny, old us could ever be taken seriously. We were tiny - but with a pretty decent range of skills, including architectural ones - and that meant, ultimately, that we could be easily batted away.

Anyone who knows me knows I fight back when I feel I have been treated badly.

I know I will have alienated quite a few folk, some of whom could have been holding the sort of purse strings we needed to get our ‘lido’ off the ground.

New lidos - or refurbished old ones - are today appearing all over place.

Nowadays, the site is a community garden (here). Even though the site had been a walled garden, it’s not that the city doesn’t have space elsewhere for such schemes.

Even now, I still believe that the main thrust of our lido project could be a driving force for innovative new development and economic pulling power.

In the end, I just couldn’t stomach it any more.

I couldn’t handle what I thought was both arrogance and complacency.

So I upped sticks and set up an art gallery in the south of France.

From my wee art gallery, I made a different life for myself; including falling in love.

I sail. I ski. I like to study and I dabble in a little small-scale architecture.

I still often think about the lido that was never to be; hoping that, one day, the idea will rise from the ashes.

Even last year, I was moved to draft a letter of complaint, but then decided against dispatching it.

I can still get annoyed.

But, by no longer living in Edinburgh, I am now much more relaxed.

Ross McEwan is a former local campaigner and ‘urban designer’. He has spent the last six years renovating his home in the south of France, which is now up for sale (here).

Image details: Walled garden, Granton; copyright Mike Wilson

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