Leith on the creative edge

Published on Thursday 22 January 2004 00:00

The site looks as if it was hardly touched by one of Scotland’s greatest-ever showbiz spectaculars. The tent has gone, so too the trucks and television cameras. In fact, just two months on, it seems as if the MTV Europe Awards never really came to Leith.

The question, posed before Kylie, Christina, Justin and Beyonc came to town, still remains. Is Leith the dynamic hub of Scotland’s creative industries, such as film-making, advertising and graphic design? Or is this an aspiration rather than a reality?

A new television facilities company, Arc Facilities, has recently set up in Queen Charlotte Lane. By happy coincidence, it opened for business a week before the arrival of Kylie and co, and was able to win some MTV editing work. But is it only a matter of time before Arc, like many creative companies before it, simply pulls up anchor and ships out of Leith?

Arc Facilities is a former pillar of Edinburgh’s creative scene under a new name and ownership. It was one of the great tragedies to befall the creative industries sector in Edinburgh when Picardy Television fell victim to, among other things, its own over-ambition and was put into receivership in January. However, Phoenix-like, it has returned to the capital as Arc, although not to its former studios and editing suites in the city centre.

"We’re here hopefully for the long term and that’s because there is a sufficient market in Edinburgh for the type of cutting-edge facilities that we are offering," says Arc’s managing director Brian Suttie.

"As long as we keep up to date with the technology, I see us being here for the duration. We have facilities in Glasgow and when we decided to set up in Edinburgh, Leith was the only place we looked at. We didn’t really consider anywhere else.

"We knew we had prospective clients around the corner, such as advertising agencies, independent production companies and design companies. It’s a very vibrant place and we are already snowed under with work. At the time of the MTV awards, three editing suites were used for the awards, another for a BBC Education programme and two others with a 26-episode children’s programme for the BBC, Shoebox Zoo."

It won’t go unnoticed, however, that Arc’s arrival coincided by only a few weeks with the demise of a production company with facilities for hire, Waterside.

"I think one of the problems with Waterside was that its equipment was outdated," claims Suttie. "It needed investment and not enough was forthcoming. However, we are starting from scratch with the latest equipment. I think Edinburgh can sustain only one facilities house and hopefully it will be us. When there are peaks in demand, such as during the Edinburgh Festival, we have our Glasgow base as a back-up."

Waterside co-founder, George Barr, who left the company four years ago and is now a director of commercials production company, Green Rooms, also based in Leith, welcomes Arc’s arrival.

"It means that whenever we need more facilities than we have in-house, they are just up the road."

If it’s symbolism you’re looking for in determining the creative future of Leith, then look no further than advertising group, the Leith Agency, 80-staff strong and the biggest of its type in Scotland. After a 15-year absence, it’s back in the area from which it took its name.

"We started up 19 years ago in Leith when the area was pretty run down," says chairman, John Denholm. "At the time, we were taking a bit of flyer - there was precious little apart from Skippers restaurant. When we started out, we pitched for a regeneration project that had a hotel in its plans and everyone just laughed; no-one could imagine a hotel in Leith and now there are quite a few. Even then, though, it had a Bohemian feel.

"However, after three or four years, we had to move uptown, because we outgrew our offices and there was nowhere else in Leith to go. We came back 18 months ago, to an area that has come on leaps and bounds. At random, from the top of my head, there are, in Leith, Scotland’s top three media space buyers within 400 yards of each other - Feather Brooksbank, Mediacom and MediaVision. As for graphic designers, there is Northcross, Navy Blue, Realise, Revolver, Design Links and lots more. What else? Denholm Recruitment, specialising in marketing and advertising. It just goes on, it’s a melting pot."

Denholm says Leith has not developed continually: "It’s grown then plateaued, grown then plateaued. It’s very exciting being back, it’s taking the feel of a very creative place.

"Although the advertising downturn has claimed some big-name scalps, such as Faulds, which was our nearest rival, it is actually shaping up to be our best year ever. The problem has been companies losing individual but huge contracts to London. However, those lost clients will soon discover they have made a mistake going to London, because they won’t receive the level of service they received up here."

Not everyone shares the enthusiasm. Bruce Findlay, former manager of Scots rockers Simple Minds, says he wishes he could be more positive ... but: "I love Leith, I love the shape of the streets, I would love to say it’s an artist’s haven, but it’s not." Findlay, co-author of a plan to turn Leith Town Hall into a recording and film studio, continues: "I was reasonably flush, I had a profile, I had contacts, it could have happened. But I needed some support from the city council and it said it didn’t have the money.

"With a consortium of like-minded people, I was good for about half of the 2/3 million that was needed but I needed the council. A lot of money was spent on putting the proposal together, there were architect’s plans and all sorts.

"But look at Leith today. There are great pubs, with some great characters and some of the best restaurants in Edinburgh. However. there’s no theatre, the cinema is in a shopping centre and I’ve yet to come across a nightclub that doesn’t struggle.

"When I was director of the Gilded Balloon Theatre, until about three years ago, I was forever pushing for it to move to Leith. The biggest thing in Leith is the Royal Yacht Britannia. It’s huge but it’s hardly rock ’n’ roll."