A split has emerged between the City of Edinburgh Council and The Scottish Government over funding to support the council and businesses in the capital following the Princes Street fire in early July.
The Scottish Government today announced £5m in support, with Deputy First Minister Jenny Gilruth dispatched to survey the scene – the first visit to the site by a government minister.
Speaking to journalists outside the Princes Street cordon, Ms Gilruth said she hopes the funds will “support businesses, look at options in relation to transport links and get the city ready and reopen” in time for the summer festivals. The council hopes to reopen Princes Street within three weeks.
While the Council Leader, Jane Meagher, expressed relief that help was on its way – almost a month after the fire – she admitted to being “disappointed that Glasgow seems to be more highly valued”.
£10m worth of support for Glasgow was forthcoming just days after the fire on Union Street, which ripped through a B-listed building next to Glasgow Central Station.
Councillor Meagher continued: “We’ve got £5 million. We’ve also got an assurance from the deputy first minister that we will continue conversations.
“So, I’m hoping that means if it turns out that this is going to cost us more than we anticipated, that The Scottish Government will be open to such a request.”
When asked how far the money can be expected to stretch, she added: “We don’t know exactly how much it’s going to cost to make the building safe, so that we can proceed with trams, etc. on Princes Street, so until we know the final cost, it’s very difficult to say.”
While she welcomed Ms Gilruth’s presence, she said she was “extremely disappointed” that the First Minister chose not to visit.
“Edinburgh is the capital city of this country. Edinburgh, equally importantly, is a driver of the Scottish economy, and if we don’t get the attention that we deserve from the first minister of this country, I think that’s shameful,” she explained.
She later added: “I must be positive in the sense that the Deputy First Minister is open to further conversation.
“So, let’s see how we get on, but I do think it’s a disappointing signifier of the importance that Edinburgh has in comparison to Glasgow, and it’s hard not to think that it might be political.”
When asked to elaborate on what she meant by “political” she said: “if you look at where the support for the Scottish National Party lies, I think that answers your question.” (The Glasgow City Council is SNP-led.)
Councillor Meagher and Ms Gilruth, after being shown around the site by engineers wearing hardhats and high-vis vests, were secreted off to the Gardener’s Lodge in Princes Street Gardens which is owned by the council.
These discussions were understood to have mainly concerned technical details of the fire and the recovery of the building, which is being completed by construction workers in cranes picking pieces of masonry off the building by hand.
The funding lands nearly a month on from the fire on 9 July despite the pleas of the SNP’s own Ben MacPherson, Minister for Higher and Further Education and Edinburgh Council.
Ms Gilruth addressed this delay, saying: “The City of Edinburgh Council leader wrote to me on the 17th of July, but we’ve been working closely with them since that time.
“This has been a constant programme of engagement between my officials and between Edinburgh council officials in relation to the support they wanted, and they were very specific about the support they wanted for local businesses, and for making sure that building was kept safe.”
She clarified that the cause of the fire still has not been established, and the government has moved at a speed “relative” to the slow pace of work.
She also suggested that comparisons to the Glasgow fire were spurious: “The approach we’ve taken here is quite different to the approach that was taken in Glasgow.
“Whereas the City of Glasgow Council had to demolish building there, so very different set of circumstances with businesses closing.
“That’s not what’s happened here. However, there was still a need for financial certainty.
“Edinburgh Council were keen to have an approach that allowed them to use the funding to channel it into a wider business campaign, to channel it into taking down some of that building but also making it safe.”
Following the visit, the council announced that funding will be channelled into several distinct streams: Building Works; Business Recovery, which will involve a council communications campaign rather than direct support; Festivals Support; and Public Transport Support, among others.
Amid fears that the closure could reflect poorly on the city during the busy festival season, Ms Gilruth admitted that “challenging times” are ahead.
She said: “It’s really challenging, but the other challenge we’ve had with this building behind me is how you reopen the street, and I have had assurance from Edinburgh Council they can’t reopen the street until that building’s made safe.
“It’s going to be a challenging time for the city, I know that, which is why I think today gives some assurance to the council in terms of that financial support from the government.
“But we also have a job of work to do to communicate to the public that Edinburgh is open for business, and we are about to be inundated by hundreds of thousands of tourists coming to the capital city, which is great for the local economy.”
She added: “So reopening is really important, and if the council is able to adhere to the timescales they set out last week, that should allow for them to reopen in the coming weeks, in the middle of the festival.”
It’s understood that the council is expecting to recoup the costs incurred by the construction work from the building’s owner, an investment firm called Criterion Capital – who had planned to turn the building into the Scotland’s first Zedwell capsule hotel. Zedwell Edinburgh Ltd own various properties including 109 Princes Street having purchased them two years ago in July 2024.
- This article or a part of it is provided by the news agency Deadline News Limited and published here with permission.
- Contact Deadline News Limited if you would like to use any or all of this article.
