Edinburgh 2025: What can be done reinvigorate our great city?

The Enlightenment broke the stranglehold of the past. It propounded the capacity to calculate and shape the future, to control nature and replace ignorance and tradition by economic rationality. These same forces that, across the world, improved health and education, and brought people together to build cities, also threatened the heritage of places and communities.

Lord Henry Cockburn recognised this tension in his 1849 Letter to the Lord Provost on the Best Ways of Spoiling the Beauty of Edinburgh. With wit and insight he warned of “hurtful temptations” as a permanent threat to the city he loved. He explained: “Intentional injury can be imputed to no party, public or private” (original italics), but he pinpointed the dangers posed constantly by “incompatibilities between public and private interests . . . bad taste (that is ignorance) in proprietors . . . [and] inconsiderate use made of their powers by public authorities”. These warnings have inspired the Cockburn Association’s campaigning for the last 150 years, and remain all too relevant in 2025.

“Temptations” became “imperatives” after the 2008 financial crisis had taken the Royal Bank of Scotland and Halifax Bank of Scotland to the brink of collapse. The recovery strategy entailed quick disposal to developers of publicly owned sites, a planning regime aimed at “making it easy to do business”, and increasingly prioritised growing tourism. The City Council spoke of “tough decisions”, as £400m was cut from its budgets in the decade to 2025, eroding the quality and maintenance of the public realm.

The Caltongate development was conceived before the crash, stalled, then delivered. The City Council’s Planning Convener said the scheme was “good enough”. The developers spoke of “a transformational development of a UNESCO Heritage site, in one of the world’s most iconic yet delicate locations”, as indeed it was. As well as the offices and new hotels, “luxury apartments” went on the market at £380,000 for a one-bedroom unit in 2022. More recently came the W Hotel, whose self-declared “inspired design” imposed “bronze coloured metal ribbons” on the vista down George Street, and from other city centre viewpoints.

Austerity urbanism, and the platform businesses that drove the boom in short term holiday lets, turned the Old Town in particular from an affordable area of permanent residence to one dedicated to tourists. Edinburgh’s success in conserving its historical environment and landscapes ironically makes those same assets ever more economically essential locally and nationally, and therefore vulnerable. In the first nine months of this year, three quarters of all hotel investment in Scotland has been in Edinburgh. These market realities impact on alternative uses, including sites for much needed social rented housing.

A further factor generating Edinburgh’s declared “housing emergency” has been the expansion in purpose built student accommodation, which offers investors attractive returns. Accommodation is an important part of the “student experience” that universities offer in a global market to recruit full-fees international students, and the universities are one of Edinburgh’s strengths. However, housing and other uses such as small businesses are being squeezed by these pressures, amidst complaints about “studentification” of neighbourhoods.

Then there is Princes Street and the Gardens, whose fate has echoed through the decades. The decline of what was the capital’s prime retail street was hastened by the St James Quarter redevelopment, and has highlighted the need for action. Councillors recently rejected a strategy for Princes Street and the Waverley Valley as insufficiently bold. So what should be done? There are lessons to be learned from other historic cities in the UK and in Europe, particularly in upgrading the pedestrian environment. A strong input of ideas from civic organisations is now needed. The Cockburn Association calls for an approach based on “local, ethical, sustainable, low emission, bespoke urbanism”, and has indicated its willingness to convene a civic conversation.

No overview of Edinburgh in 2025 would be complete without mention of the trams. Delivering a long-term transport strategy is important both for net-zero and for economic efficiency. However, any solutions must be sensitive to the city’s special built and natural environment, take full account of the likely disruption and represent the best investment of public funds. So far, a convincing case for the routes included in the current consultation has not been made.

Lord Cockburn pondered what Edinburgh might be like in 2049. Our book sketches two scenarios. In one, crowds flock to the Hogmanay event in the huge arena in Andy’s Burgers Gardens beneath the castle. Tourism is booming, the airport has a new runway, and net-zero should be reached in 2065. Heritage One, the city centre, is pay-to-enter. An aging tram system is suffering breakdowns and overcrowding, and does not serve the gated communities that have grown in the former Green Belt around the Outer By-Pass. The Cockburn Association is long since defunct.

Conversely, the City Council’s 2050 Vision of a “community-led”, “cohesive” and “collaborative” city has been delivered. A reinvigorated form of civic democracy, “The Edinburgh Model”, has conserved and renewed Edinburgh with hallmark features such as nature reserves in every neighbourhood, and all knitted together by mass transit systems. As it celebrates its 175th anniversary with its huge membership, the Cockburn Association, has kept alive Lord Cockburn’s message that with beauty comes a duty of stewardship for citizens in this special city.

Cliff Hague and Richard Rodger are the editors of Campaigning for Edinburgh – The Cockburn Association 1875-2049