Not so long ago there were very few gap sites in central Edinburgh available for redevelopment and now in the space of a couple of days two are emerging, one by design and the other, as far as we know, by very unfortunate accident.

The former is Edinburgh Napier University’s Merchiston campus, the original 1964 technical college building now deemed unfit for purpose, affected by crumbling aerated concrete, and with the Grade A listed 15th-century Merchiston Castle in its midst.

Very much of its era, even by the iconoclastic standards of the 1960s, it’s still incredible the functional steel and glass construction was allowed to surround the tower, with a hole knocked through a wall for access. Alumni apart, few tears will be shed when the bulldozers move in.

Of course that depends on what replaces it and a protracted wrangle over the site’s future is inevitable, as there is each time an opportunity for a significant housing development arises. Nothing will happen quickly, especially with a Grade A listed building on the site, just as the Phoebe Traquair chapel complicated the redevelopment of the old Sick Kids in Marchmont.

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Ordinarily, housebuilders would be falling over themselves to acquire such an expansive plot in a desirable district, and nearly 30 years ago Stewart Milne paid a jaw-dropping £6 million for the St Denis & Cranley School on nearby Ettrick........

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