Tartan tat is turning Royal Mile ‘into Disneyland’

ONE of Scotland’s most historic thoroughfares, which links Edinburgh Castle with the Palace of Holyroodhouse, is being turned into a tourist “Disneyland” dominated by tartan tat shops, it has been claimed.

Steve Cardownie, the deputy leader of Edinburgh city council, has admitted that the local authority has failed to control an explosion of shops in the city’s Royal Mile selling “jimmy hats”, cheap kilts and furry Loch Ness monsters.

Mr Cardownie has accused the shop owners of showing “scant regard” for the street’s centuries-old history by the way they display their wares on the pavements and assail passers-by with blaring bagpipe music.

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He singled out the Gold Brothers empire, which runs most of the tourist shops in the city centre, and warned that they would soon be in “every second shop” in the Royal Mile, unless the council stepped up efforts to control what kind of shops operate on the thoroughfare.

It emerged last year that the Gold Brothers had snapped up a retail unit in the multi-million-pound Royal Mile development, which includes the Missoni Hotel.

Mr Cardownie’s intervention has come four months after the first “Royal Mile summit” was held to address long-standing concerns over the state of the thoroughfare and set out ways to improve it. He told The Scotsman that the council was prepared to take firm action to transform the fortunes of the street if business owners did not change their ways.

His remarks follow a rash of closures of independent businesses in and around the Royal Mile, including the cafes Always Sunday and Chocolate Soup, a florist on St Mary’s Street, Black Bo’s restaurant, Bagpipes Galore on the Canongate and its close neighbour Scottish Soapworks.

Many shop owners claim the council is to blame for the closures by failing to curb rent rises and allowing tartan-tat shops to flourish.

The council has now appointed a Royal Mile “tsar” to draw up a new code of conduct for businesses, while a separate action plan will look at longer-term measures to improve the mix of businesses and encourage more independent operators.

Mr Cardownie said: “The problem is the sheer number of these shops and the way that what they sell is being displayed. If we are not careful, people will be coming off the bus and thinking they are in Disneyland.

“There seems to be an insatiable desire to open these kind of shops on the Royal Mile. It’s almost become like ‘Munro bagging’. When it comes to the council’s properties, it shouldn’t just be about getting the best value for the property.

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“The level of encroachment on to the streets and pavements is simply unacceptable, as is the volume of the bagpipe music that is being blared out.

“Tourists must think that they are in competition with each other but they are not coming to the Royal Mile to go to these shops, they are coming for the history and the attractions, like the castle and St Giles’ Cathedral, not stuffed giraffes and lions wearing tartan or to hear the Corries blasting out.

“We want people to be more responsible and show a bit more restraint. At the moment, they are showing scant regard for the history of the Royal Mile.”

Mr Cardownie’s views received a mixed reception yesterday.

Will Tebbutt, manager of the Fudge Kitchen, on the High Street, said: “I do think there’s too many of them. It’s a shame when a good shop closes, you know that it will probably open back up as a souvenir shop.”

Mike Craig, manager of Unknown Pleasures record shop, on the Canongate, said: “It’s hardly surprising that there are so many of them – the rents are so high no-one else is willing to set up here.

“I really don’t know how they could legislate on what kind of things people sell in shops.”

American tourist Lisa Poole said: “I wouldn’t say there are too many of them. It’s just the same as any other big city where there is a main attraction. To be honest, we expected it.”

Gordon Henderson, development manager at the Federation of Small Businesses, said: “I don’t think it’s helpful to be demonising any particular sector. It is up to the council to control how goods are displayed and things like the level of noise from music and we would support them in that. A bigger issue for us is the level of rents charged by the council and how that impacts on the rents private owners are charging. That’s why places are closing down.”

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Katy Kerr, spokeswoman for the Edinburgh Old Town Association, said: “There’s no doubt things have deteriorated in the last five or six years.

“There have been a worrying number of closures in and around the Royal Mile recently and they’ve all been independent operators.”

It emerged three years ago that the city council owned 46 out of the 129 commercial premises on the Royal Mile – a statistic that heightened demands for the local authority to take direct action.

Tom Buchanan, economic development leader at the council, said: “We recognise that to maximise the Royal Mile’s future potential for locals and visitors, action is required to improve the pedestrian experience, the retail offering and the day-to-day management.”