An “aspirational loop” of the Old Town including the Royal Mile, Holyrood Road and the Grassmarket, will be closed to traffic on the first Sunday of every month from May, in an 18-month trial.

The council believes the Open Streets trial “will be one of the first big intervention to start to inform what we are doing in the city centre”.

Council ‘can’t justify’ waiting for tram inquiry findings

How Lothian Road could be transformed, Picture: Edinburgh Council

More than 5,000 people took part in a consultation with 51 per cent saying they wanted a more radical approach to the city centre transformation, 37 per cent called for “targeted investment” and only 12 per cent were happy with a business as usual attitude. Only 37 per cent of people surveyed were satisfied with the quality of Edinburgh’s central public spaces.

No solid proposals to transform the city centre’s transport network will be tabled until May, but the council has illustrated “a flavour of how amazing the city could be”, including images of pedestrianising the Royal Mile and Cowgate and creating a plaza across Lothian Road with reduced traffic.

Project director Daisy Narayanan, said the area outside the Usher Hall should be a “beautiful civic space”.

She added: “In most European cities, it would be a plaza, but it’s cut through with six lanes in places, with an urban motorway.

how Cowgate could look after transformation, Picture: Edinburgh Council

“One of the things that we don’t want to do is just pick streets and pedestrianise it. It has to work within the framework of how the city moves.”

The council has tabled three appraisals, a combination of all will be brought forward in the final strategy.

The “smart” appraisal would not require a huge amount of investment and make better use of current assets such as restricting freight vehicles at certain times. The “local” appraisal would be community-focused and involve strengthening the town centres such as Portobello, Stockbridge and Leith Walk and “making it less necessary for people to make cross city centre trips”.

A third appraisal, “connected”, would require substantial investment to provide “big zones of pedestrian priority spaces and closing access to vehicles”. It would also attempt to calm traffic so “we potentially don’t need to have segregation” between vehicles and active travel.

Transport and environment convener, Cllr Lesley Macinnes, said: “We have got very ambitious plans around changing the way in which people move around the city in order to support our economic growth, to support our population growth that’s coming in the next 20 years.

“Our vision for the city’s future is ambitious and it’s clear from the recent consultation that the people of Edinburgh share that ambition. There is not only a demand for change, but recognition that this needs to be significant in order to achieve an inspiring, healthier and more inviting city in which to live, work and play.”

The council also confirmed that discussions had began with Lothian Buses to examine proposals for a shuttle bus for the city centre.

Ms Narayanan added: “One of the ideas we have discussed with Lothian Buses is potentially a city centre hopper bus that goes both ways.

“Part of the business case would look at how much that would cost and what impact it would have. There’s a huge amount of work to be done to make that happen.”

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Edinburgh’s Old Town roads to close once a month ahead of ‘radical’ transformation