Essential Edinburgh: 'Businesses will ask why more was not done'

WHEN Essential Edinburgh was established as Scotland's fifth Business Improvement District in the Summer of 2008 the timing could not have been better.

The city centre, like the rest of the country, was about to be hit by the credit crunch that would come to define the following year and a half.

The objectives were timely indeed: to globally market the centre as a place to do business and to visit; to increase customers and revenue; to get private and public sectors working together better; and to deliver world-class environmental services.

Many will be disappointed, therefore, that Essential Edinburgh's first annual report shows that it has not delivered as much as it might have.

More – 404,000 – was spent on organisational costs like salaries and consultants' fees, than on promoting the centre – 394,000.

In fact, almost as much was retained as "surplus" from the compulsory levies paid by local businesses, plus Edinburgh Council grant, as was spent on promotional projects.

It's not that good work has not been done – it has, especially on keeping shoppers safe, cleaning up the area and the campaign to boost Christmas footfall. And it is true that Essential Edinburgh is only in its second year.

But those who have paid their fees will rightly say that more could have been done at the very time when local businesses needed most help.

Snow fun anymore

AS THE Lothians start to return to normal after the festive break, the common cry about the weather is "enough is enough".

The snow was nice, for a while, but as we enter our third week of snow and ice it is starting to feel a little like The Day After Tomorrow.

The problems caused by the big freeze were all the more acute this morning as many people returned to work. This meant braving roads and pavements which, frankly, have not been kept as clear as tax-payers have a right to expect.

As Martin Hannan accepts in our opinion section, no-one expected the chill to be quite as long and hard. But most will agree when he fumes that more could have been done.

Of course, it doesn't help if salt put out for community use disappears, apparently to be used by private firms. It may 'just' be grit that has been taken, but it was supposed to be used to keep driveways and paths clear.

In other words, it was supposed to keep us all moving. Its loss should be regarded as nothing less than theft.