Education, Culture and Sport Committee, 14 Jan 2003

Meeting date: Tuesday, January 14, 2003

Official Report 188KB pdf

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Roman Remains at Cramond

Agenda item 4 is consideration of recent correspondence on the Roman remains at Cramond. Three of us, along with Ian Cowan, visited Cramond on a rather damp day in December. I did not follow the advice that I was given to bring the right shoes.

We have received further correspondence from Mr Ron Guild. For what it is worth, my view is that the City of Edinburgh Council, as the lead authority, should collate the information and that the convener of the Education, Culture and Sport Committee should not do so. Such a role would be inappropriate and would cause confusion rather than help matters. People are now taking responsibility and progressing the issue and it would be helpful if they were left to get on with things—that would be the right course of action.

I concur. I am enthusiastic for the matter to be taken forward. The committee should have a continuing role in keeping an eye on things and helping Mr Guild, as we have helped him strongly through many difficulties in the past three years. However, I do not think that the convener, or any other committee member, could take on the role of co-ordinating activities—that is a job for the City of Edinburgh Council with Historic Scotland and the landowners. We should make that view clear to the council and also express our gratitude to Eric Milligan, who has been exceptionally helpful and positive. We should tell Mr Guild that the committee will always be his friend and that, if he wants to continue to deal with the issue, we will keep our eye on it. I am sure that we can pass on Mr Guild's case gift-wrapped to our successors through the legacy paper.

I concur that Eric Milligan has been exceptionally helpful. He realises the importance of the Cramond site and appreciates problems in its potential development or non-development. I will certainly send him a note to thank him for his involvement, which has been useful. He has helped to progress matters.

Perhaps we should encourage the local constituency member, who was also on the visit and was positive about it, to continue her active involvement. I am sure that she will want to do so—I am not criticising her. The committee can have a watching brief.

I will certainly pass the information to Margaret Smith, who is the member for Edinburgh West. She has a close interest in the matter and we will let her know what we are doing.

She was very helpful on the visit.

She was. We will keep an eye on the issue and it will certainly be part of our legacy paper to a future Education, Culture and Sport Committee, should there be one after the next election.