IT is one of the city's most iconic buildings – but a new council report has valued it at less than the price of a Ford Fiesta.

At £9960, the Scott Monument is part of a £3.3 million list of common good assets, which are land and property owned by the people of Edinburgh but looked after by city officials.

The 162-year-old Princes Street tourist attraction is joined by other landmarks such as Bruntsfield Links, valued at £1, and Calton Hill, valued at £11,400.

The assets have been given such low price tags because they either have no commercial value or city leaders would not be allowed to sell them.

The council review was ordered after criticism that the local authority was mismanaging millions of pounds worth of common good assets, most of which were donated to the city by philanthropists or were formerly owned by the royal burghs for more than 100 years.

The review also revealed city leaders are sitting on £1.4m in the common good fund, which is earning the council £75,000 in interest each year.

However, common good laws mean it can only be spent on things that benefit the whole city, such as buying museum exhibits or the upkeep of public buildings.

Officials have also ruled that Portobello Park is common good land which means court permission will be needed if plans to relocate the crumbling Portobello High School to the park go ahead.

The latest value of the common good assets is twice the previous estimate, although land reform experts argue that the true value runs into tens of millions.

[3]

Councillor Gordon Mackenzie, the city's finance leader, said: "In recent years there has been a lot of interest in the common good assets and this report is a good starting point in beginning to identify all the land and properties that the council holds on behalf of the city.

"The next step is to establish strategic objectives for the common good holdings to ensure that the best use is being made of them for the people of Edinburgh."

The report was ordered in 2006 after research from land reform expert Andy Wightman highlighted "serious shortcomings" in the council's stewardship of the fund.

One of his criticisms was that the common good fund was missing out on valuable rent from the land where the Princes Mall shopping centre currently lies because it had been transferred out of the fund for below its market value.

But council officials have concluded that the land ceased being common good land when the market moved to a nearby home in East Market Street in 1938.

The land at East Market Street then became common good land and is now earmarked for part of the Caltongate development.

A proportion of the money for the sale of this land will be go into the common good fund if the development goes ahead.

The report also rules that West Register House and the old Royal High School are not common good assets, but that the Meadows, the writers' museum and City Chambers are.

The review has identified annual costs of around £1.7m for the upkeep of common good assets.

Previous Tollcross Articles
Revealed: the mystery man behind canal safety signs [4]
Changes to licensing fees [5]
Last orders at African café that made dinner for Mandela [6]