City centre roads closed as loose cladding causes flap

IT is normally the crumbling cornices of Edinburgh's historic buildings that are cause for concern.

• The Princes Street Suites building

However, police had to close off sections of a busy city centre road after a section of metal cladding came loose from one of the Capital's most modern properties.

Police were called just after 12.30pm when it was noticed that a large section of metal, part of the Princes Street Suites building on Waterloo Place, was flapping in the wind. Sections of Leith Street and Calton Road were closed while engineers assessed the situation.

The road was closed for more than three hours in all yesterday as a team of engineers worked to secure the cladding, which was estimated to be about 15 metres long.

A worker who witnessed the closure said: "They cordoned off the road stopping people going up the way.

"It was all developed not that long back, done up and made into flats or whatever. The police were turning people back. Somebody further down was stopping the cars."

A spokeswoman for Princes Street Suites said they had contacted the police after noticing the loose section of cladding ahead of maintenance work they had planned.

She said: "As a precaution, after we spotted a section of the building was causing concern, we called the police, who advised that they should close the roads.

"The building has now been secured, and the roads are open again."

It is the latest scare involving Capital buildings, but one of the first to involve a modern structure. Last year, great-grandfather David Hay, 69, said he felt "lucky to be alive" after being knocked over when a large chunk of masonry fell from a rooftop in Home Street.

In 2008, a woman had a narrow escape in Princes Street after tiles fell from the roof of a department store and smashed on the pavement in front of her. In 2000, Australian waitress Christine Foster was killed at Ryan's Bar, in the West End, after being struck by masonry.