Halmyre Street, Edinburgh is a strip of land left over from a housing development off Leith Walk in Edinburgh. The City of Edinburgh Council (CEC) wished to take ownership to provide an access road to a proposed affordable housing development.
An approach was received from CEC to take ownership of the land. CEC had contacted the company who previously owned the land to find that the company was dissolved and that the land may have fallen to the Crown.
A meeting was held with CEC and agreement was reached to transfer the property direct to the Local Authority to use to for access to affordable housing. The OPTS process of offering the property through the public bodies trawl and to the community sector was disapplied in this pilot case as the Local Authority proposals were determined to already be in the public interest.
This property is in the final stages of transfer and is expected to conclude shortly.