After years of controversy, Edinburgh’s councillors this week grasped their officials’ bull by the horns and approved the new Garden District, a decision which will change the shape of the capital city for good.

Argument about this strip along the City Bypass, owned by Sir David Murray, has raged for the best part of 20 years, back to when Sir Sean Connery sponsored a firm studio plan which was rejected in 2001 primarily it was seen as a Trojan Horse for houses.

Ah the irony. While what passes for a Scottish film industry is still waiting for a sound stage 15 years later, the vision for a new suburb of 1,300 houses has been given the go-ahead in spite of fierce opposition from Edinburgh City Council’s planning department. So no horse, but 1,300 Greeks.

This scheme has been over six years in the preparation and the level of consultation has been rewarded by support from all but one of the community councils in the immediate area who saw the development of land between three dual carriageways as a sensible way to relieve pressure for development in their areas.

But the planning officials have doggedly stuck to the principle of preventing construction on Green Belt land at any cost, claiming first that the land was not part of a strategic development area (SDA) along key transport links. In Monday’s committee meeting they were unable to admit the original advice was wrong and instead resorted to sophistry by arguing that just because land was in the SDA didn’t mean it had to be developed.

If there is any doubt Edinburgh City Council’s planning department needs a good shake-up it should be swept away by this episode and SNP councillor Sandy Howat went for the jugular by describing the official report as “fundamentally dishonest”. One way or another, this situation cannot go unresolved.

The planners did have their supporters; planning convener Ian Perry rejected allegations of bias in a show of loyalty to people he has to work with every week, but then voted against their recommendation. Only Green councillor Steve Burgess lined up with them, not surprisingly, to oppose Green Belt development in principle.

In such an obstinately conservative city it is rare indeed for such a major development to go through with hardly any dissenting voices – there wasn’t even the customary representation from the fundamentalist Cockburn Association – so now there is an opportunity to create the best-planned, best-connected addition to the city since the war.

For transport, with three trunk roads, a railway line, a tram depot, an airport and a canal, there are very few, if any, places in the whole of Scotland better suited for managed development.

And with adjacent Edinburgh Park, the massive International Business Gateway planned for the other side of the A8, plus the redevelopment of the Royal Highland Showground and RBS’s plans to expand the workforce at their Gogar HQ to 6,000, this is where Edinburgh’s future job opportunities will be found.

The SNP group hope the bitterly-opposed plan to build 600 houses at Cammo can now be shelved for good, but although the Garden District will make a significant dent in the city’s housing targets they won’t solve the problem. Only more sleight of hand with government guidelines allows planning officials to claim there is an oversupply in the pipeline, but figures agreed as recently as 2014 show 8,400 units will be needed from new land allocation – in other words, Green Belt -- to meet a target of 32,400 by 2024. So 7,000 to go.

Planners argued the bypass was a recognisable barrier and that anything beyond it should be off-limits, which seems to be an argument for building on the many fields still open to the South and East.

But already congested roads apart, there is no transport infrastructure; no trains or trams and big hills to dissuade potential cyclists. But the Western Wedge, from the Bypass all the way to Newbridge is flat, has a railway through the middle and the tram extension route protected.

Sprawl is what is happening in south-east Edinburgh, where there is no masterplan for managed expansion but there is now an opportunity to avoid unplanned sprawl by controlled and designed growth in the West where the potential is far greater.

But well-designed and controlled masterplans need vision and while it might not be the New Town, the great and the good of Edinburgh have a chance to show they are as up to the task as their 18th-century forebears. Monday’s decision was a good start, but there is an awful long way to go.