Nick Ball: Do not write off Edinburgh’s commercial appeal

ACCORDING to the latest Global Financial Centres Index, Edinburgh has slipped in the rankings to 54th place. The drop of 17 spots puts Scotland’s capital city just below Madrid, Helsinki and Buenos Aires and just above Mexico City, Dublin and Istanbul.

Glasgow was ranked 50. The report accompanying the index suggested the fall in status for Edinburgh is a reflection of the recent turmoil faced by the Scottish financial services sector. That may be so, but Edinburgh’s fortunes as a financial centre are far better defined by its future than by yet more regurgitation of the past.

We see a city centre that is striving to reflect aspiration, not retrenchment. Occupiers display a clear preference for the highest standard of office accommodation in the best locations and recent city centre take-up levels have been showing signs of sustainable growth.

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As custodians of 19 properties in Charlotte Square, one of the most important pieces of real estate in Edinburgh’s Unesco world heritage site, we also see an optimism and sense of renewed purpose emerging within the banking and financial services community.

Our refurbishment of the once grand Georgian townhouses on the south side of the square is aimed, in particular, at a financial services industry that is distinct, robust and forward looking. In seeking to create one of the most prestigious business addresses in Europe, we are not short of interest. We are attracting attention from overseas and UK-wide institutions. For them, Edinburgh is not “on the way down”; it is most certainly desirable and dynamic.

It is all too easy to talk our capital city down or lick the wounds of the past. That is what drags us down. The truth for those who wish to see it is that Edinburgh is thinking ahead and building a future. The quality and attractiveness of the city, its architecture and its economics continue to attract commercial enterprise, including that within the financial services sector looking to expand or relocate to Scotland’s capital.

There are those who believe in a positive future for Edinburgh and are striving to hasten it.

• Nick Ball is a director and co-founder of Corran Properties Ltd.

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