The Disneyfication of Edinburgh

Remember that when you arrive into Edinburgh by train you are arriving into a novel, Walter Scott’s Waverley. A new chapter of the city’s own story is a sad and poignant one.

News that Edinburgh Council are considering closing key leisure facilities across the city comes as something called the Edinburgh Tourism Action Group (ETAG) ‘the umbrella organisation for the tourism sector in Edinburgh’ polls people on what to spend the money generated by the proposed Visitor Levy, a daily charge put on hotel and guesthouse beds very similar to tourism taxes in other European cities.

At the same time this week the story broke that Edinburgh Council are considering closing a raft of facilities across the city, which collectively currently employ 160 people between them. These include outdoor pitches and pitch venues at the Jack Kane Centre in Niddrie, the Meggetland and Saughton Sports Complex’s, Portobello Swim Centre, the Kirkliston Leisure Centre, the leisure facilities at Wester Hailes High School, Gracemount Leisure Centre and Glenogle swimming pool in Stockbridge.

There seemed to be some confusion about whether these closures were planned, or being considered with Council Leader Cammy Day replaying to Tommy Sheppard saying: “Tommy knows this is another made up story from the SNP … no proposals have been made for any closure.”

Edinburgh Live’s reporter Donald Turvill broke the story after a presentation entitled “venue closures” was presented to the board of Edinburgh Leisure – and shared with the Local Democracy Reporting Service – which showed the eight venues listed as part of ‘2024/25 financial planning’. The closures, if they go ahead, would save the city just under £2m.

These two things – the crisis in the city’s funding of basic facilities – and the proposed Visitor Levy (or Tourist Tax) are connected, or they should be anyway. The council are claiming a £3.6m funding shortfall but the Tourist Tax has the estimated potential to generate £37 million annually.

This should be a No Brainer. The tourism industry has fleeced people for decades and the entire city has been turned into a theme park, the cities landlords and private companies have raked in the cash for a very long time while the very infrastructure of the city has been distorted by private greed, its municipal assets undermined and its public facilities spoiled. It’s payback time.

Rather than close down key facilities in working class communities like Niddrie, Saughton, Gracemount or Wester Hailes lets enhance and expand them, and if we only a few years ago spent £5.7 million on a revamp of Glenogle Baths (backed by almost 10,000 people in a petition), how on earth does it make sense to lose this asset?

The announcement of closures, and the attempt to pretend they weren’t happening at all (Edinburgh Leisure changed their position three or four times within 24 hours) represents the total short-termism of the capital city and its complete orientation and dedication to people who don’t actually live here. This dereliction has taken physical manifestation. You can see it in the city’s Central Library, which now has the light in its reading rooms shut-out by the building of the Six Star (6!) Virgin Hotel behind it, or the proliferation of the profitable ‘student accommodation’ which pockmarks the city. Or indeed the St James Quarter with its infamous ‘poo-emoji’ rooftop. Commenting in the London Review of Books, the writer Rory Scothorne notes (‘Edinburgh’s Festivalisation‘): “You can’t buy what Edinburgh has. You can, however, rent out certain kinds of access to it. This … is a recipe for self-destruction. The influx of international capital produces homogenisation, or worse, Disneyfication. The Golden Jobby would disgrace the skyline of any city”.

All this is up for grabs. As no-one really knows who runs Edinburgh – all we know is that the clandestine powers that be are organising to make sure that the Tourist Tax is re-directed back into the hands of the tourist lobby and its associates to carry on the lucrative business strategies they have enjoyed for so long. The Disneyfication must be intensified and the singular economic strategy: mass over-tourism must continue. ‘We simply don’t have the funds for a football pitch in Niddrie’ argue the city-fathers in a town literally drenched in money.

But as the council polls its citizens Edinburgh’s own council leader Cammy Fay has called for the new visitor levy to be introduced to help the city fund its festivals, including this weekend’s loss-making Hogmanay street parties. According to the Guardian’s Severin Carrell (‘Edinburgh council’s leader calls for tourist tax to fund city’s festivals’): “Cammy Day, leader of Edinburgh’s Labour administration, said the proposed visitor levy could help the city raise about £25m in extra funding for services and to subsidise tourism infrastructure.”

It will be interesting to see what the peoples’ response to the poll is, and what impact, if any it has. But Mr Day’s position is incredible. Scotland’s capital is a city on its knees financially, that can’t apparently fund a football pitch or a swimming pool but has an estimated four million visitors per year.

In all the guidebooks and cheap history books you will read the same tale of Edinburgh. How the slum-like Old Town was in stark contrast to the modern New Town with its grid-like formation and Georgian excess. It was a tale of two cities mirrored by the split persona of Deacon Brodie, the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde.

But Edinburgh is as split and separated today as never before. The housing market is grotesquely distorted by the legacy of short term lets and social-cleansing has accelerated in recent years exasperated by the festivalisation of everything and the regulation of nothing. The idea that a Tourist Tax would be diverted back into the hands of the tourism industry itself is so absurd it would be a fitting closing to the story of the city. It would mean that the capital had effectively been captured completely and any effort to halt or slow the process utterly defeated. There would now be a closed-loop of cash circulating through the hands of a rentier class and a handful of business and organisations while the rest of the city’s residents service that industry or languish in the periphery. Edinburgh is a city of great storytelling and literature but that is a grim ending for any story, and one that is a disgrace if it is allowed to be written.

Note

After publication the PR people from Edinburgh leisure were in touch. They denied that these cuts were being considered and pointed us to an updated story from the Edinburgh Reporter which stated:

“The Edinburgh Leisure boss said that a presentation which she had prepared for a board meeting last December, which should have remained confidential, was somehow released, and the information has been used out of context. Ms Peebles said that she imagines the Chair of Edinburgh Leisure, Scott Haldane, will investigate the matter further. Members of the board include councillors and others, and there is a PR protocol binding on all board members that any contact with the press must be referred to the PR department of Edinburgh Leisure or to Ms Peebles.”

I’m not sure that this quote clarifies the matter at all.

They informed us of a memo sent to staff from June Peebles, the head of Edinburgh Leisure which stated:

• “….some of the reporting is misleading, specifically the references to venue closures. The position is as follows: information was prepared for the Edinburgh Leisure Board to illustrate the extent of the closures to venues and services to address the estimated funding gap in 2024/25.
• For example the Board were informed that closing / handing back all the pitches to the Council would save approximately £1m however this figure does not include the cost of closure and the costs that would transfer to the Council.
• “There are currently no plans to close venues, rather I (and the Strategic Leadership Team) continue to work with colleagues at the Council as to how, together, we address the 2024/25 funding challenges.
• “There is no denying next year’s funding challenges are significant and, understandably, this situation will be unsettling and worrying for many of you. Please be assured I will continue to update you on next year’s budget and ongoing discussions with the Council and do contact me with your questions and/or any points for clarification.

Bella Caledonia remains committed to updating articles containing incorrect material or false information. However none of the main substance of the article seems effected by the updated denial.