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October 24, 2004
Multrees Walk, Baghdad, Edinburgh
Late afternoon in Multrees Walk and VSG Security are alert to an attempted terrorist reconnaissance. Photo © S Holledge
I wrote about the St James’s Centre on 12 October and wanted to add some photos of the building and its surroundings. So on Friday I took advantage of the good weather to walk over to St James’s to take some shots. (These are now up).
Dressed conventionally in an old (venerable?) tweed jacket, I’d just had my hair cut and looked, I thought, as respectable as any other citizen of Scotland’s capital. Or maybe not!
Leaving the centre I strolled into Multrees Walk, the ‘Edinburgh Nouveau’ shopping area behind Harvey Nichols. and started taking a couple of pictures. To my astonishment I was sharply apprehended by a security guard who told me (a) I was not allowed to take pictures, suggesting that I “might be on a reconnaissance”, (b) that Multrees Walk was private property not a public street, and (c) that he worked for VSG Security whose main office was in London, but he “couldn’t give me the address for security reasons”, and (d) VSG were employed by Jones Lang LaSalle.
Multrees Walk has spaces for 27 shops but only 8 are occupied: Louis Vuitton, Armani, a new branch of Valvona and Crolla and a few others. It’s a failed attempt to lure in the usual international luxury tourist goods companies. Could this be the reason why they don’t want photographs?
I checked the street for any notices suggesting that it was a private area. There were none. Later on the internet I found VSG were based in Northampton. Their address is of course readily available. The press representatives of Jones Lang LaSalle denied that their company were involved: it was LaSalle Investment Management.
Alastair Jamieson had an article with a picture of the Valvona and Crolla branch in the Scotsman on 16 October.
news.scotsman.com/features.cfm?id=1194172004
Posted by Simon Holledge at October 24, 2004 07:46 PM
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