Dale Gibson is a busy man. As chief executive of Scot-ART, formerly Edinburgh Palette, his charity provides homes for creative businesses of all shapes and sizes in buildings which might otherwise struggle to find a use.

His team is the ultimate in make-do-and-mend, for years turning the unlovely St Margaret’s House in Meadowbank, built for the 1970 Commonwealth Games athletes, into a warren of studios, offices, galleries and performance spaces, but with the understanding that owner Caledonian Trust would sell up and one day they’d all need to move.

It’s an arrangement which has worked well; the charity generates a modest income for the Trust, the building is kept functional and intact, and the small businesses and charities have a home. The end almost came five years ago when Caledonian struck a deal with the Drum Property Group to turn the site into flats and student accommodation, but that fell through. Now a new deal is imminent and Scot-ART needs to leave in January.

“There is more sadness than bitterness, but there was something magical about St Margaret’s, and everything seemed to gel so well,” said Mr Gibson this week. “The units could have filled every shop the length of Leith Walk, but because we were all in the London Road Lubyanka, no one really knew the full impact.”

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