Edinburgh festivals face calls for overhaul before they return in 2021

The Cockburn Association watchdog has called for pro-active crowd management measures to be put in place to ensure the city’s historic environment is properly protected after this year’s coronavirus-enforced hiatus.

Edinburgh World Heritage wants events to take steps to help conserve “the fragile environment from which they benefit so much and perhaps even leave the city in a better state than they found it in.”

Council chiefs said the cancellation of this summer’s major events, which have attracted a combined audience of more than four million in recent years, provided an “opportunity” to shape their future direction.

The city’s two main heritage groups have spoken out less than a fortnight after the plug was pulled on the city’s August festivals due to the uncertainty caused by the virus outbreak.

Cockburn Association chair Cliff Hague said: “The summer festivals are vitally important to Edinburgh’s people, businesses and tourism brand.

“However, concerns have been growing across the city in recent years, about the scale and unintended side effects, such as overcrowded streets, the takeover of Princes Street Gardens and the squeeze on affordable housing due to the growth of short-term holiday lets and hotels.”

Edinburgh World Heritage director Adam Wilkinson said: “Part of the Edinburgh Festival’s success traces to its remarkable backdrop, which is as breathtaking as any opera set, which was one of the reasons the city was chosen for the inaugural festival in 1947.

“As we pause to take stock on what life will be like post-coronavirus, we’d hope the festivals of the future might help to conserve the fragile environment from which they benefit so much, and perhaps even leave it in a better state than they found it in.”

An official report two years ago warned councillors that the city was beginning to struggle with the volume of people converging on parts of the city centre during major events. New safety barriers and road closure put in place last summer were met with a mixed reaction.

The “pressure of huge numbers descending on the city centre” was cited as one of the key factors when Edinburgh was named one of the world’s overtourism hotspots last year, while a campaign was launched a year ago to “defend” Edinburgh against overtourism, “festivalisation” and privatisation of public space in the city centre for events.

Council leader Adam McVey said: “The cancellation of this year’s festivals will hit our city hard but it does give us an opportunity to shape the future direction of the biggest explosion of arts and culture anywhere in the world.