Pandemic must provide impetus for Edinburgh to end long-standing cultural sagas – Brian Ferguson

A Sunday afternoon stroll through the historic heart of Edinburgh is as bewildering and bewitching an experience now as it was last spring.

The Quaich Project has been stalled after failing to win enough support, after more than six years in the planning stages.

Bathed in a dazzling wintry light, the Grassmarket, Victoria Street, the Royal Mile, the Lawnmarket and Edinburgh Castle esplanade were as as enchanting as ever.

Yet there was still a feeling of heartbreak at how empty and eerie the city centre felt compared to this time last year, when all those thoroughfares would have been full of life.

Venturing into West Princes Street Gardens, I looked down towards the Ross Bandstand and the vast concrete bowl which became the focal point for many of the city’s signature events, and feelings of melancholy about the pandemic-enforced events hiatus quickly turned to exasperation over its run-down condition.

It emerged over the weekend that the bid to create a new open-air concert and events arena in the gardens was on the verge of being scrapped.

A lack of funding and support, combined with the impact of the pandemic, has led to it going into cold storage. Edinburgh has now made two serious efforts to replace the existing bandstand, which dates back to 1935, since the 11th-hour cancellation of the Hogmanay party in the face of high winds in 2003. It would be generous to say any real progress has made.

But the malaise over the bandstand is also mirrored over a number of other cultural buildings and facilities in the city.

When Sir Sean Connery was a regular visitor to his home city in the 2000s he put his name to two major projects – a new home for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and Filmhouse, and a bid to turn the old Royal High School on Calton Hill into a national photograph centre.

The former Royal High School on Calton Hill would be turned into a new music school and concert hall if the council agrees to lease out the building.

A new chapter in the 50-year-old saga of the latter building is about to get underway after the city council decided to pull the plug on a third attempt to turn it into a luxury hotel. Despite already approving planning permission for a rival scheme for it to become a music school and a concert hall, the council has instead opted to put it onto the open market.

Meanwhile the “temple of film” is already facing opposition from the heritage sector which believes the public square it is earmarked for should be protected at all costs.

Edinburgh’s efforts to build a new medium-sized concert hall, like the Filmhouse saga, have been dragging on for the best part of 30 years. The latest scheme, for a site off St Andrew Square, has been sent back to the drawing board after the developers of a new five-star hotel launched a legal action to try to reduce its height.

As if all this weren’t enough, there is a pressing requirement for upwards of £30 million to reopen Leith Theatre permanently and bring the King’s Theatre up to modern-day standards.

The new Filmhouse building on Lothian Road is already facing opposition from the heritage sector over concerns about a loss of public space on Festival Square.

While the pandemic is perhaps not the best time to be talking about spending millions on new cultural infrastructure, it must provide the impetus for decision-makers and key players in the city’s cultural scene to get their heads together. With other cities around the world investing in 21st century cultural infrastructure, it should frankly not be beyond Edinburgh’s finest creative minds and innovators to find permanent solutions.

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