Beyond the tourist centre, a cultural revolution is taking root in North Edinburgh.
North Edinburgh Arts (NEA) provides far more than a mere “community centre”. It truly lives up to its name as a hub, uniting a spectrum of activities from art, dance, and music to textiles, woodwork, and yoga. Their new home, which occupies a third of the Macmillan Hub in the heart of Muirhouse, is a testament to this ambition.
The facility houses a 96-seat theatre, a busy 72-seat café, and a wealth of creative spaces – including artists’ studios, wood workshops, and a music studio. The building features a hot-desk mezzanine and a third-floor greenhouse, seeding stock for the half-acre community garden. NEA Director, Kate Wimpress, expressed clear pride in the new Hub, which opened in 2025. However, she emphasised that this building represents only a phase in a wider project that started in 1998 and has significant ambitions for future development.
Kate believes that having a “quality building” is a critical necessity. It serves as the first tool used to overcome negative preconceptions about this historically stigmatised area of the city. Drawing on her career in the cultural sector, she positions NEA not as a standalone social inclusion project, but as a clear continuation of that work. The place, she asserts, should “look like an art gallery” and the work conducted there should be judged on those same standards of excellence.
Great surprises
At a Creative Edinburgh event in October, held in NEA, it was clear that many attendees were unfamiliar with either the place or the area. This is not the North Edinburgh of Trinity and Inverleith, but an area long associated with social deprivation. Putting NEA and the Macmillan Hub (named after the late local activist Maureen Macmillan) on the cultural map is part of the project, primarily through tapping into the creative potential in the local community.
Embedded in this project is a desire to show that Edinburgh extends far beyond the familiar tourist circuit of the Old Town, Dean Village, and Stockbridge. A new pamphlet, North Edinburgh’s Hidden Gems (published by the Pilton Community Health Project), validates this by highlighting “great surprises” in the area, such as Muirhouse Mansion and the former railway turned “active travel” paths. The Macmillan Hub is one such surprise. Wimpress notes the Hub is practically well-connected to central Edinburgh, served by several buses (stopping at the slightly confusingly named “Muirhouse Hub” stop). While there are no practical barriers stopping people from visiting, powerful, invisible divides can remain.
The stratified city – breaking down divides
Edinburgh is often noted for the ways its geography segregates different social groups and classes. Breaking down this reality of what Wimpress sees as a “stratified city” is central to NEA’s mission, particularly in light of the current polarised times.
There is a tangible sense that working-class communities are marginalised within the cultural sphere. Arguments persist that the Edinburgh Festivals are dominated by a small slice of society – to include those with the financial security to invest the £10k or so that most Fringe performers lose when putting on a show. As Kate puts it, living in Edinburgh is expensive, so following a creative path “without a safety net” is very hard. Creating the support structures needed is central to NEA’s mission.
She wants the project to answer a crucial question: “Where does the next generation of working-class artists come from?” If we as a society don’t provide cultural opportunities for such communities, a huge wellspring of talent could be lost. Wimpress believes there is much untapped potential in the area, and cultivating it is NEA’s mission. That cultural achievement has often come from unpromising places (New York in the 1970s, the estates of Manchester in the 1980s etc) does hint at the potential. The area has a recent history of producing award-winning and internationally known artists.
Culture is ordinary
To achieve this, culture needs to be understood as an activity that working-class people engage in, not just the middle classes. Kate uses the phrase “culture is ordinary”, coined by the cultural theorist Raymond Williams. It is the idea that culture is not just about “high art” or elite achievements, but is an inherent and fundamental part of everyday life.
NEA, she says, aims to “normalise creative endeavour”. It shouldn’t be a separate leisure activity, but something to engage with on a regular basis. She emphasises the importance of engaging in activity, not just attending performances. She cites the Flourish jewellery group, founded by Lisa Arnott from Silverhub Studios, which holds sessions at NEA focusing on excluded groups. Participants have reported benefits to their mental health.The focus required gives important time away from screens and everyday concerns. Producing good work provides a “sense of achievement”, and Kate hopes Flourish will become a permanent fixture.
The changing landscape – gentrification and diversity
Muirhouse and Granton are going through a period of significant change. Thousands of new homes have been built, with many more to come – including a new block for those with accessibility needs right in front of the Hub.
Kate is aware that gentrification is somewhat inevitable, but she points to Leith as an example where gentrification didn’t entirely erase the essential character of the area. She believes the essence of Muirhouse will remain.
However, one aspect fueling social polarisation is the fear of change and displacement. She acknowledges that we must be “mindful” of these feelings, and that there should be no sense that the long standing character of the place is under threat. Simultaneously, the area is becoming more diverse. At the local secondary school, 48 different languages are represented. Kate sees this injection of new energy as a bonus, though she admits “there can be tensions”. She has confidence that cultural activity can play “an active role in de-escalating” these.
Permanence and ownership
Crucially, the building is now owned by the community it serves. This gives a sense of permanence: whatever other changes happen around them, “we will be here”.
Community ownership also fosters empowerment. NEA has 400 ordinary members helping to shape the organisation as stakeholders. The project also aims to engender community wealth building, possibly following the “Preston Model” of re-orientating an economy to better serve local needs.
Though NEA is based in Muirhouse, Kate Wimpress is keen to deepen connections with other emerging cultural projects, such as The Pitt in Granton, and the National Galleries’ Art Works to be constructed nearby. She wants to see a flourishing creative scene embedded in the local community that does not rely solely on the big cultural institutions.
Investing in lasting quality – funding the vision
Looking out at the back garden, it was clearly no mere flat plot of land, but a beautifully and lovingly crafted space. Kate hopes the garden will become an even greater feature, further emphasising the sense of space and light it provides to the venue. The former NEA building also had a pretty space for gardening behind it. Among the exciting plans is the addition of an artist built bothy, by Stevie Dale, to be used as a dedicated, unique meeting space, set among plants and landscaped ground.
The Hub is defined by its modernity and tangible sense of quality, and this level of facility does not come cheap. Kate explains that the organisation has developed a strong aptitude for attracting substantial funding, a direct result of the high-quality grant applications put together by her and the wider team. Key to this success is the “good story” they have consistently been able to tell about the project and its far-reaching potential.
Things can change
One aspect that underpins her essential optimism is her own experience growing up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. During the worst times, she had little sense that things could change. So much potential was wasted in that time. For peace to happen, it required people – including senior politicians – to “take big risks”. They demonstrated that politics was capable of achieving lasting change. Similarly, the social and economic problems in Muirhouse are not insurmountable. Kate’s background gives her an underlying optimism that “things can change”. Things are changing in North Edinburgh, with NEA at the heart of that, and more change is on the way.
With the construction sites nearby that mark the changing face of North Edinburgh, Kate’s message feels particularly appropriate. Her message is uplifting and inspiring. In a city often defined by its expensive festivals and historic divides, NEA stands as a testament to a different kind of culture – one that is rooted locally, grown right here, and driven by the people who call this place home.
North Edinburgh Arts has a full programme of activities. Find out more here.
