The revelations that Edinburgh Council and the Quaich Project are promoting West Princes Street Gardens as having “unparalleled market potential” marks a fundamental change in the function and identity of this much-loved park.

It is public-good land that belongs to all of us, a civic space held in our name, not in the name of some multi-national investor. The gardens are being offered globally to businesses as a place “to showcase your brand and increase experiential marketing activity”.

The language converts the gardens into a commodity. As citizens we should be able to stroll through our gardens without being immersed in a brand or subjected to marketing: we need places to escape from being bombarded with exhortations to consume more and more.

West Princes Street Gardens is public-good land, owned by the people and held by the council in our name (Picture: Lisa Ferguson)

We are seeing the normalisation of a set of relationships where a local authority morphs into a business. The results are all too visible in East Princes Street Gardens where the mud and water is the legacy of the council’s partnership with Underbelly for the Christmas Market, which began construction four months ago.

‘Reimagined’ Princes Street Gardens would host 15 major events a year under new ...

The trashing of East Princes Street Gardens makes it even more important to get improvements to West Princes Street Gardens right. The initiative of hotelier Norman Springford five years ago to donate money to restore the Ross Fountain was widely welcomed, and the results appreciated. However, his ambition for a wholesale makeover of the gardens no longer looks the way to go and his resignation from leading the controversial Quaich Project may mark a new chapter in what’s been a long-running story.

An international design competition was held in 2017, and the artists’ impressions of the winning designs have been widely published. However, until there is a planning application we do not know just what might be proposed. Until we know that, and until engineering surveys have been done, the final cost of the scheme is pretty much guesswork (remember the trams?).

‘City-wide entertainment and exhibition offer’

A figure of £25 million has been advanced by the project team, with the city council offering to find £5 million if the other £20 million can be raised. A public consultation run by the Quaich Project in late 2019 found that nature – biodiversity, environmental responsibility, mental health and well-being – was ranked top of four priorities for the gardens, with celebration – arts and public performance – the lowest ranked.

The council and the promoters of the scheme have boxed themselves in. By aspiring to make the gardens “the focal point for a unified city-wide entertainment and exhibition offer” they are courting unnecessary controversy; but a less expensive, more modest approach could command widespread support. For example, make “nature” the unambiguous top priority; it would be the best fit for the climate emergency, and is what people most value about this gem in the World Heritage Site.

Reimagine the play area and the shelters, and find ways to improve disabled access, particularly at the west and east entrances where most people enter or leave. Make the existing bandstand and seating fit for the kind of small community-based events which featured prominently in the public consultation.

Sometimes city should say ‘no’

It is the expensive and intrusive “big ticket” items in the current proposals – the Welcome Centre/corporate entertainment building, the new stage, and bridge over the railway to enable larger articulated vehicles to access the gardens – that propel the marketing of naming rights, exclusive corporate events etc.

The £5 million the council has committed to providing could go a long way to delivering the smaller upgrades. If more is needed, look to borrowing, real philanthropy or crowdfunding, but not corporate branding. There would be no more fortnight of Summer Sessions during August or big Hogmanay concerts in the gardens. Dropping these would be an immediate step to delivering the aim in the new Edinburgh Tourism Strategy to manage tourism and make Edinburgh “an exemplar in achieving environmentally sustainable urban tourism”.

If the city and the industry are serious about this, they have to say “no” to some things. Events designed to attract more tourists at precisely the times when the city is already most crowded should top that list. There have been complaints that noise from the Summer Sessions disrupts enjoyment at the Tattoo, and we know that the screens erected to block views from Princes Street into the open-air concerts restrict pavement width at the busiest time of the year.

The council argues that these major events have to be held so that small “community” events in the gardens can be cross-subsidised. This obfuscates some basic points. Any charge for state school use is simply a transfer within the city council – from education to cultural venues.

The council has enough money to pay huge sums to Underbelly, for example, to run Hogmanay: can’t it subsidise local performers? Finally, towns across Europe stage community-based events without handing over their cities to big commercial operators: it’s something councils are there for.

Instead of selling the names of walkways or entrance gates to Huawei or Amazon or whoever will “donate” most money, let’s give residents the opportunity to suggest and vote for names.

The memorial benches – so casually dumped and discarded in East Princes Street Gardens – and the memorials to those sacrificed in wars provide the basis for a different kind of branding, one recognising the diverse contributions made by people who were inspired by and loved this exceptional city, and who made the lives of others better.

Why not a Robert Louis Stevenson Walk? Or a commemoration of the passionate energy that Ricky Demarco invested in the arts in Edinburgh? Let’s have a flower bed or a series of school choir performances named after Helen Crummy who pioneered the idea of arts–led regeneration in Craigmillar. Let our premier park tell their authentic stories and those of others like them, rather than advertise a mobile phone company or banking group.

Cliff Hague is chair of the Cockburn Association

Why Edinburgh doesn’t have to sell out Princes Street Gardens to big corporations – Cliff Hague