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Building Better Cities: Delivering Growth and Opportunities

EDINBURGH

Recent experience

Edinburgh's major economic success story is borne on the back of growth in financial, business services, public administration and cultural/entertainment sectors - the right economic mix at the right time. It now enjoys high incomes, high employment, limited deprivation and exceptional "quality of life". Of the 4 larger cities it has the lowest crime and the highest "neighbourhood satisfaction". Residents of Edinburgh are twice as likely to have a degree, and half as likely to have no qualifications, than the average for Scotland. Its problems are primarily those of success.

Key challenges

Edinburgh is coming up against constraints to future growth: tight labour market, significant house price inflation, high commercial rentals, traffic congestion, pressures on the green belt. Its key challenge is "growth management", and this challenge is not a temporary one - both population and the number of households are projected to increase in the future. Edinburgh will need to manage its transport system for business, its use of land, ensuring new sites for both housing and business, and managing the spread of business actively outwards, with all that entails for transport, planning and housing. The pressures for growth risk damage to quality of life, one of the mainsprings of Edinburgh as a business and residential location. Such pressures might also make responding to new challenges more difficult; high house prices stifle job mobility when it is needed most.

Any frustrated growth cannot automatically be assumed to transfer to other Scottish city-regions - the skilled/experienced labour market and supplier base that has developed in Edinburgh over a period of years is in many areas just not available elsewhere in Scotland on a similar scale. Edinburgh's success may bring opportunities for other areas, but this process will require policy management.

Short-term priorities

Key requirements are:

• Improving transport infrastructure and traffic management. This will improve accessibility for business and widen the travel to work area. Improved transport infrastructure is required within the City, connecting the Waterfront, South-East Wedge and West Edinburgh, and with respect to the wider City Region;
• Rectifying skills shortages, by widening the travel to work area and attracting and retaining fresh talent - for example reminding students from outwith Scotland of the benefits of staying here;
• Managing pressures on greenbelt land for housing and business development. The need is to ensure that the city and the wider city-region works more effectively, whether as a source of labour or a location for back-office/secondary functions.

Longer-term directions

Hard choices for the city lie ahead. Strategic decisions are required on how and where the current and forecast economic and household growth in the city can be accommodated.

ACHIEVEMENTS AND COMMITMENTS

• City Growth Fund will provide city with 24.2m over 3 years;
• The prospect of 9,000 new jobs and recycling 140 hectares of land on Edinburgh's Waterfront;
• A draft Planning Framework for West Edinburgh was issued for consultation in August and the aim is to issue a final version by March 2003;
• 10 new primary schools, 2 new and 3 refurbished secondary schools and 2 new and one refurbished special schools through 91m PPP programme - improving facilities for over 10,000 of the city's pupils;
• "Quality of Life" initiative worth 7.6m in 2002/03 to help improve the quality of people's everyday lives. Further 14.3m allocated in the Scottish Budget over 3 years;
• State-of-the-art facilities at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, at a cost of 180m and 50m for the extension of existing facilities at Edinburgh Western General, are part of the largest hospital building programme in NHS history.

DETAILED ACHIEVEMENTS AND COMMITMENTS

• Currently 3m is being spent to support over 2,000 trainees on Skillseekers, Modern Apprenticeships and Training for Work courses;
• 10,000 more vocational students at Lothian's Further Education Colleges since 1999;
• Increased investment in Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt, Napier Universities, Queen Margaret University College and Edinburgh College of Art - up by 23% since 1999 to 213m;
• The Executive is working with Edinburgh to address its transport problems;
• Addressing traffic congestion in Edinburgh and a rail link to Edinburgh airport are two of the Executive's 10 national transport priorities;
• 8.5m for Edinburgh CrossRail which opened in June 2002 - the first new railway completed in Scotland since 1993;
• 1m for preparatory work on Waverley Station, identified as a priority in new Strategic Rail Authority UK investment strategy;
• Future options for rail links to/from Edinburgh being reviewed in the Scottish Strategic Rail Study;
• 15m for preparatory work on the North, West and South Edinburgh tram link;
• Over 26m on improved bus priority routes and related initiatives;
• 1.9m over the 4 years to 2003-04 for investment in walking, cycling and safer streets projects;
• Over 0.5m for CCTV systems to fight crime in known "hot spots", since 1999;
• All schools now have access to the internet;
• Community safety partnership grants of some 266,000 to help Edinburgh develop local solutions to local crime problems;
• Since 1999, Communities Scotland supported 1458 units of affordable housing in Edinburgh to help regenerate disadvantaged communities and provide housing for those with particular needs worth 49m;
• Over 35.4m of Social Inclusion Partnership funding committed to deprived areas and communities in Edinburgh from 1999 to 2004;
• Since 1999, over 17,000 houses in the city have benefited from the Warm Deal and Central Heating Programmes;
• 219m of Lottery Funding has been made to Edinburgh since 1993;
• Refurbishment of the Royal Scottish Academy, with 10m Executive funding as part of the 29m Playfair Project;
• Increased support for the Edinburgh International Festival;
• Provision of sporting facilities for young people and for the community in general from the New Opportunities Fund PE & Sport programme worth nearly 6m;
• Featuring Edinburgh prominently across the VisitScotland product portfolio and in VisitScotland's international campaigns.

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