Sick of Edinburgh's 'tartan tat' shops? Here's what it could be like instead – Lynzi Leroy

Tourists crave the real Edinburgh experience, not a confected version of it, says Lynzi Leroy of the Scottish Design Exchange

Edinburgh city centre should be a showcase for the image Scotland wants to project to the world. Every year our capital city throngs with tourists expecting to see shops selling the high-quality, home-produced goods for which our country is renowned: the world’s finest whiskies, heritage-brand clothing made from cashmere and Harris Tweed, artisan foods, expertly designed art and crafts, to name a few.

Instead, on Princes Street, they’re greeted by gap-toothed rows of boarded-up units, alternating with American candy stores, pound shops and purveyors of cheap ‘tartan tat’. The Royal Mile earned the unwanted title of “Britain’s biggest tourist trap” in a survey by holiday rental company Casago. A damning TripAdvisor review said the High Street was “overcrowded and vulgar”, “given over to commercialism” and had “lost its soul”.

What we should be proud of as our window to the world has become a national embarrassment. For Edinburgh residents, who once enjoyed the retail delights of stores like Jenners, Wylie and Lochhead, Darling’s, Binns, and Copland and Lye, city centre shopping has become something to endure.

Edinburgh's Royal Mile is a historic street that should showcase the best Scotland has to offer (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

It doesn’t have to be like that. For all the talk of the high street’s demise, the internet’s power and changing consumer habits, the reality is that people still want to break the monotony of the working week by meeting friends and browsing the shops.

Damaging Edinburgh and Scotland’s reputation

The city centre’s decline is not an inevitable accident of economic history. It’s a result of positive choices made by property owners, agents, council planners and politicians. I know because, for the past ten years, I’ve been trying to spearhead a retail revolution, and the fact I’ve achieved any success at all is in spite of, rather than because of, decisions made, and avoided, by these people.

I regularly speak with visitors to the city in our flagship Royal Mile store in the Tron Kirk, and I’ve lost count of the number of times I’m asked “where can we buy local products?” or “how can we tell the difference between what is genuine or fake?” It’s a hard question to answer. The rising tide of tartan tat shops, selling cheap products with Scottish-sounding brand names but no reference to where they are made, creates confusion around authenticity. When a customer is given the impression that an imported product is made in Scotland, it damages the city’s and the nation’s reputation.

Councillor Marco Biagi recently said he felt “red-faced” walking past tartan tat shops owned by the city council. His council colleagues should share his embarrassment. Many voices have raised these concerns over the years, only to fall on deaf ears. Contrast that with Victoria Street and West Bow, recently named Britain’s best street for independent shops in a survey by American Express. Independent businesses offer choice, variety, and intrigue for tourists and locals alike.

The city council needs a sustainable, long-term plan to change the Royal Mile by supporting local, independent businesses and removing monopolistic exploitation. They can learn lessons from countries like France, Spain and Italy which all recognise the importance of local businesses to the communities they serve.

Bucking retail’s declining trend

I regularly visit my husband’s home country of France, and my favourite place is St Paul de Vence, a medieval town on top of a hill, which attracts two million visitors every year. As you travel through the narrow streets of its pretty town centre, similar to Edinburgh’s Royal Mile and its narrow closes, it's filled exclusively with independent, artisan shops selling paintings, glassware, jewellery, ceramics and locally produced delicacies. What’s been allowed to happen in the Royal Mile would not be permitted in France.

We’ve been seeking to replicate that model at the Scottish Design Exchange since 2015 by providing high-profile and affordable retail space for hundreds of self-employed artists, designers, and artisans at our stores in George Street, High Street and Glasgow’s Buchanan Galleries.

Since then, we've enabled our tenants to generate more than £6 million of income after our charges and running costs and, following the success of our most recent outlet at the Tron Kirk and the recent launch of Foodies, our new food and drink outlet, they're on course to make more than half of that total, £3.5m, in a single year.

It seems self-evident to us that, in bucking the retail trend so conspicuously, our creative template could be replicated to help revive the failing high street. As a social enterprise, we’re not interested in making a profit for ourselves, only in generating income and employment for our tenants. At the Tron Kirk, we have 21 independent designers and artists from small businesses based in Edinburgh and East Lothian, with one from Glasgow and one from Ayr. The success for these local traders has been life-changing.

By being given the chance of a high street presence, they have access to hundreds of thousands of potential customers every year, while visitors to the city get access to authentic products, designed and created in Scotland. That money stays in the local economy and gets spent in local communities.

Edinburgh city centre would be best served by local people having a meaningful say in decision-making. The more it feels like a place they want to eat out, sit out and shop in, the more the visitors will love it. They want to interact with locals and experience the city as its authentic self.

Tourists crave the real Edinburgh experience, not a confected version of it. The city council needs to listen to local people. To stimulate the local economy and create the local flavour and variety visitors and locals both want, they should encourage and support independent businesses. When the council is ready to listen, I am ready to help. Edinburgh is one of the world’s top visitor attractions. To live up to that status, we must reshape how we present ourselves.

Lynzi Leroy is chief executive of the Scottish Design Exchange and a board member of Essential Edinburgh