‘Edinburgh for Sale’? Public anger growing

After hundreds turn out for Cockburn Association debate, John Mclellan says council needs to decide what it wants

After over 700 Edinburgh people attended the “City for Sale” debate organised by the Cockburn Association, if Edinburgh Council isn’t persuaded that residents are losing faith in its management of the city centre then it’s hard to think what will.

To gather that many people on a January night is a fair measure of the disquiet, if not downright anger, being caused by the way the council has allowed entertainment firm Underbelly to take over the Old Town and Princes Street Gardens, and not just because the application of normal planning rules was, to put it mildly, less than rigorous.

The result of the internal investigation into the planning permission fiasco is still awaited, but it is already colouring attitudes towards important developments like the Quaich Project to replace the Ross Bandstand in West Princes Street Gardens, whose representative at Thursday night’s debate was reportedly met with gasps when she claimed it would be an improvement.

The Quaich will be discussed by councillors next Friday, and the committee report claims there will be no increase in the number of major event days beyond the current 15, but The Cockburn is already opposed because, they say, it represents over-development and the Gardens should be “a public park where events are tolerated, not a performance area surrounded by gardens”, despite the fact that’s what the Ross Bandstand effectively has been for decades.

The council points to the 200,000 or so locals who bought tickets at the attractions as proof of popularity, but without proper market research there is no way of knowing what would drive or depress visitor numbers.

The core problem is the council administration doesn’t really know what it wants, doesn’t know what the public wants and doesn’t have a reliable means to find out. It therefore becomes a prisoner of unfolding events, pressure groups and whatever expression of public opinion comes its way.

The Quaich looks like a good project, but because of the way the administration has managed Princes Street Gardens it’s being seen as just another sell-out.

Moving the Winter Festivals will also be discussed next week and putting that report together with the newly agreed tourism strategy illustrates an organisation at odds with itself. The tourism strategy marks a new approach to the visitor economy in which the city switches from driving growth to managing growth that will inevitably come, with the council’s chief executive Andrew Kerr claiming Edinburgh does not need to promote itself because natural growth in global tourism will increase visitors by 3 per cent. Although the council is reluctant to admit as much, this is why Marketing Edinburgh is being wound up.

Yet the Winter Festivals report reiterates the objective set for Underbelly by the council “to ensure that Edinburgh maintains its position as a world-class destination city for residents and visitors throughout the winter season”, but adds it must “maintain Hogmanay’s status as a world-class event that promotes the city internationally”.

So which is it? Is the council promoting the city or isn’t it? I happen to think it should and the Quaich project should go ahead but the clear direction chosen by the administration is that promotion and marketing should cease. That being the case, then logically it should order an immediate scaling back of Underbelly’s programme, which with some negotiation surely it could do without affecting the terms of its contract?

But that would require a degree of clarity and co-ordination which all the evidence suggests is absent.

Clear thinking seems to be in short supply at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport as one of the last acts of Secretary of State Nicky Morgan, now Baroness Morgan of Cotes, is to hold up the purchase of the i newspaper by Daily Mail parent company DMGT while Ofcom and the Competitions and Markets Authority conduct a public interest investigation.

Despite assurances the i would be edited separately from the Mail – and there is plenty evidence of the daily and its Sunday sister taking very different editorial lines – there is still concern about lack of choice in the middle market.

But given the enormous pressure news publishing is under from Google and Facebook, it’s unclear how the paper would fare better under a different proprietor. Further, Ofcom rejects arguments that the BBC creates the biggest distortion of all in the UK news market and if the BBC doesn’t cause a market problem, then how can the public interest in the social media age be threatened by DMGT adding one title to its stable?

The news industry thought the DCMS had learnt its lesson when it prevented DMGT selling three local titles to the Kent Messenger group to preserve local advertising competition and, as it was warned would happen, DMGT then closed the titles. It seems not. Maybe after Baroness Morgan steps down at the impending Cabinet reshuffle, the next minister will take a more enlightened view fit for the digital age, not that of hot metal.

As Scottish rugby die-hards get set to cross the Irish Sea for by far the best away fixture of the Six Nations, the absence of clear thinking has led to star play-maker Finn Russell walking out on the squad for reasons yet to be fully understood.

At his best an instinctive, match-winning visionary, at worst a liability, one way or another he is box office and an on-form Russell was Scotland’s main hope of beating Ireland in Dublin for only the second time since 1998.

It will be the talk of Temple Bar and Baggot Street this Friday night for sure, but if Russell wasn’t able to put his own interests first by apparently refusing to stop drinking, missing training and then stropping off back to his club in Paris, he certainly wasn’t thinking about the team or the supporters. We outsiders don’t know what is at the root of the problem, or what goes through the mind of a professional sportsman when their behaviour is so unprofessional they put their whole career at risk, and tarnish their reputation for whatever career comes after.

Most of us making the trip have served our time as players at one level or another, but few of us as professionals, certainly only a handful my age or older because payment would have meant a lifetime ban. Outrageously talented he may be, but being a professional rugby union player is still a great privilege.