Portobello Sailing & Kayaking Club have submitted an application for a new boat store and changing area. This is to replace the existing metal boat store.

20/00493/FUL – comments by 13 Mar

“Design statement

The building will replace the existing boat shed and adjacent storage. The shed was erected in 2009 to house the club’s rescue boat. An off-the-peg metal structure, its condition after 10 years has deteriorated. Increasing patronage of the club has led to accretive and untidy additional storage. The new building provides an opportunity to rationalise these issues in one new building which is custom designed and will be made from more durable materials.

In addition to kayaking and rowing, the club runs sailing lessons for Castlebrae Community High School pupils. Current changing facilities at the club are non-existent and to be able to provide the lessons the club relies on an arrangement with Portobello Swim Centre. With its own on site facilities the club will be able to extend its current offer to other nearby high schools.

We held some informal neighbour consultations on 6th August 2019, inviting 60 neighbours from Bath Street and Straiton Place to attend an evening discussion at the club. An alternative location for the new building was tabled, at the east end of the site adjacent to the play park, but the majority of neighbours who attended expressed a preference for a location in the same location as the existing shed.

Key design issues are as follows:

1. The height of the building is kept as low as possible to minimise disruption to views from neighbours in the Straiton Place tenement. This has led to a proposed flat roof, which will be planted with sedum in order to provide an attractive outlook for overlooking neighbours.
2. A horizontally themed treatment to the elevations reduces apparent height.
3. Fibre cement shingles provide a durable and low maintenance cladding material. Shingle colours are “sampled’ from the local area (sand, vegetation, red and buff sandstone, off white render) and installed in a Pointillist arrangement in order to further break down the mass of the building.”