Dear petition supporter: help us stop the building of 1,330 houses on our Green Belt! Save Brunstane Green Belt is campaigning to stop Edinburgh Council from adopting a 'Local Plan' which approves the building of 1,330 houses on Brunstane Fields — the last remaining Green Belt land separating Edinburgh from Musselburgh and Newcraighall village. As a community, we’ve raised many objections to this — including the damage it would do to the local environment and the severe traffic congestion that it would cause. But these objections have fallen on deaf ears — not least, we suspect, because Edinburgh Council effectively owns the land and stands to make a large profit from its development. It seems that only legal action will now save Brunstane Fields from being lost, forever. Our main legal argument against the development is that the Local Plan breaches a statutory requirement: the Local Plan must be "consistent" with the Regional (South-East Scotland) Development Plan — but the Regional Plan designates Brunstane Fields as Green Belt land. So if Edinburgh Council were to adopt a Local Plan which redesignates Brunstane Fields (from Green Belt to 'suitable for housing') then that would be inconsistent with the South-East Scotland Plan and therefore illegal. We’ve also argued that Edinburgh Council also failed to undertake an adequate Strategic Environmental Assessment — a legal requirement — particularly regarding the presence of historic shallow coal workings throughout the site and their impact on natural habitats for wildlife. The initial advice is that our legal arguments have merit. We've engaged a solicitor to represent us (Craig Whelton of Burness Paull) and we are now seeking to raise between £3,500 and £8,000 to pay for a legal opinion from a leading planning law Advocate on the strength of our case. Our strategy is to use this opinion to persuade Edinburgh Council that its proposed Local Plan is illegal — and that it should therefore remove Brunstane Fields from the Local Plan before it formally adopts it this October or November. We are raising this money through an independent organisation, CrowdJustice, which provides a secure mechanism for making donations to fund legal action. Your donation is only collected if we reach our initial target (£3,500); and it is paid directly to our solicitors. You can support our campaign by making a pledge on the CrowdJustice website at: https://www.crowdjustice.co.uk/case/save-green-belt-at-brunstane/ Further details of the campaign and our objections to the development — as well as details of how the CrowdJustice system works — are available on that webpage. All contributions, however small (or large!), are very welcome. We appreciate that not everyone in the community will be familiar with making payments on the internet; hopefully those of you who are not familiar with this will have family, neighbours or friends who are willing to help you to make a donation. We’re trying to persuade Edinburgh Council that it's proposed Local Plan is illegal — but we need your support to be able to do that! Please help us to ensure that our community's voice is heard and that we can save Brunstane Fields from a disastrous development. Many thanks Save Brunstane Greenbelt Campaign