Former Edinburgh nursery closed by fire to be demolished to make way for flats

Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Edinburgh News, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. A former Edinburgh nursery building which was closed by a devastating fire five years ago is set to be demolished to make way for new flats. A fire in May 2021 at Lanark Road Nursery caused significant damage to the two-storey building at 305 Lanark Road in the Kingsknowe area. The fire started within the attic space and quickly ripped through the existing building, devastating the nursery, destroying almost all of the contents and causing significant damage to the building fabric. The demolition plans were accepted by the council's planning department on September 1, allowing the applicant, Mr Gary Anderson, to press ahead with already approved plans to build 11 flats at the site. The owners took the tough decision to demolish the nursery following the fire, despite having permission to build a replacement nursery at the site, plans which had to be dropped due to rising costs. The applicant said: 'Over the months that followed, a team of building surveyors and engineers assessed the damage done by the fire in order to decide upon the best way forward to reinstate the nursery. 'Sadly, it was deemed that it would not be possible to retain the existing building and that demolition would be required to facilitate a replacement development. 'At the time, consent was granted for a replacement nursery, however after a sharp increase in costs involved in constructing a new nursery to current health care standards and building regulations meant the development was not viable. 'Instead, an alternative approach to convert the site to residential use was looked at and subsequently, in November 2024, an application for a new development of 11 residential flats was approved. 'The intention now is to build out this residential development, per the approved planning consent.' Approving the plans, the council's chief planning officer David Givan referenced the approved plans to build flats at the site. He said: 'The proposals would enable a fire damaged building to be replaced with a new housing development. Therefore, demolition would not result in significant harm to the conservation area due to the value and present condition of the existing fire damaged building. 'The demolition of the existing building is therefore acceptable.' Get all of the latest breaking news from Edinburgh and the Lothians with our free breaking newsletter. No demolition shall start until the applicant has confirmed in writing the start date for the new development by the submission of a Notice of Initiation of Development for planning permission application. The applicant now has three years to carry out the demolition, with the application receiving no public comments on the council's online planning portal. Lanark Road Nursery had been a long-standing family business, having been passed down from one generation to the next over it's 26-year-history. The nursery began in 1995, originally at a property on 295 Lanark Road, for a five year period before moving to the original building at 305 Lanark Road in 2000. Following the devastating fire in 2021, pupils attended a temporary facility for a period, but the nursery closed down for good in 2023.