New home for Edinburgh Festival Fringe gets £1.25m boost as year-long project gets under way

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society has secured a £1.25m boost for a project which will create a new home for the event in a Victorian school building.

A key funding gap has been bridged after the arts charity secured two new grants for a long-planned project which has previously won the backing of the UK Government.

The Fringe Society has also has received the keys from Edinburgh City Council, which has agreed a peppercorn rent for the B-listed building on Infirmary Street, and is about to start work on a year-long transformation.

The building, which is near the Pleasance Courtyard, will become home to an official festival archive and research library, as well as a new base for the Fringe Society to run its year-round advice, support, marketing and box office services from.

The "Fringe Central" hub - which performers, companies, journalists and industry delegates will use in August - is also expected to offer affordable year-round rehearsal, workshop and desk space for artists and cultural organisations in the city.

First announced in 2017 as part of a blueprint for the Fringe’s future, the project was given a huge boost when it secured a £7m funding pledge in the 2023 UK Budget.

Within weeks the arts charity revealed it was in talks over a long-term lease of the then South Bridge Resource Centre, which was approved by councillors last March.

The Government later agreed to reallocate £1m of the £7m it had pledged to allow the Fringe Society to expand an artists’ support fund, which was launched by Fleabag star Phoebe Waller-Bridge, for another two years.

The funding gap created by that agreement has now been bridged by a £1m "legacy gift" from the Foyle Foundation, which has distributed almost £65m to arts charities across the UK since 2001.

Power company SP Energy Networks has agreed to provide a further £250,000 from a "net zero fund" which supports building decarbonisation projects.

The planned transformation of the building, which dates back to 1885, will see new windows, insulation and ventilation installed, as well as a new lift and toilet facilities.

The Fringe Society has pledged that the revamped building - which has been used in recent years as community learning and development centre - will have an "open access" policy.

Although further fundraising will continue over the next year, the project’s final cost is expected to be under £8 million.

Fringe Society chief executive Shona McCarthy said: "This is an exciting moment. It has taken nearly two years of planning and discussion to get to this point.

"As well as being a new space for the Fringe Society team, the conversion of the South Bridge Resource Centre into a year-round Fringe home will allow local cultural and community organisations, and Fringe artists the opportunity to utilise it.

"It will allow a permanent home for our August community hub, which artists, arts industry, media and international delegates access for events, networking and industry gatherings.

"This is a significant moment for the Fringe in ensuring a permanent home for the festival."

Foyle Foundation chief executive David Hall said: "We were seeking a Scottish project of strategic importance and long-term transformational benefit to support.

"The new Fringe home provides a permanent base, stability and excellent new facilities for the Fringe Society, as well as a year-round additional resource for Scottish performers and artists."

Guy Jefferson, transmission managing director at SP Energy Networks, said: “We’re proud to support the Fringe Society as they take their first steps in this exciting new venture.

“With our help, the team is creating a space where the local community can experience all of the cultural benefits of the city’s arts festival, year-round – using low carbon technology to reduce the site’s emissions by as much as 80 per cent.”