After a 19 year long campaign, The City of Edinburgh Council has approved the capital expenditure to permanently transform a space in the city named The Causey.
This funding will allow the area to be changed into a “greener, safer and more welcoming place” for everyone in Edinburgh.
The changes will include widened pavements, traffic-calming measures, segregated cycling facilities and a new accessible public space at the junction of Nicolson Street and Buccleuch Street.
The first tranche of £300,000 was approved earlier this year and now the transformational capital funding will follow soon after. This is welcome news to the campaigners who followed the lead set by the late Alison Blamire who first called the space The Causey when she had an office there overlooking a space which she knew could be improved upon. The name comes from the “cassies” or “causeys” – the cobbled setts on the street, probably quarried nearby at Salisbury Crags.
Sarah Drummond, Chair of Causey Development Trust, said: “This is a transformational moment for The Causey and the culmination of 19 years of extraordinary determination by local people.
“What began with local architect Alison Blamire’s inspired transformation of a traffic island into a tropical island can now become the permanent, welcoming and people-focused space that the community has always known was possible.
“This is a powerful example of what community-led action can achieve. Local people have shaped the vision, sustained it through years of setbacks and continued to demonstrate how this neglected space could bring people together.
“The Causey also shows exactly how Visitor Levy investment can work for Edinburgh. It will improve everyday life for residents while creating a greener, safer and more welcoming experience for visitors moving through the city’s Southside and festival footprint.
“We are enormously grateful to everyone who has kept faith with this project, including our volunteers, local residents and businesses, councillors from across the political spectrum, council officers and the many partner organisations who have helped us reach this point. This investment means that, after nearly two decades, the community’s full vision can finally be delivered.”
There are two parts to the funding – £462,000 of Visitor Levy funding for key infrastructure improvements at the Causey Triangle and £1.4 million for the next phase which will extend the new look and structure towards Nicolson Street, improving connectivity and the wider public realm.
Local campaigners have held “sit oots” and other creative events over the years building support for the campaign to transform the space permanently. But the 2007 transformation by Alison Blamire into a tropical island is the one that people remember best.
The project has previously been hailed as an exemplary community initiative and has been developed through collaboration between Causey Development Trust, local residents, City of Edinburgh Council officers, the Walk Wheel Cycle Trust, Edinburgh World Heritage and landscape architects Ironside Farrar. The current council papers formally describe it as a community-led project and recognise that it originated as a community initiative.
The transformed space will be designed to support informal gatherings and community-led activity, as well as potential outdoor performances, pop-up markets, art installations and exhibitions. New public-realm and active-travel infrastructure will create a safer, more attractive environment for people walking, wheeling and cycling.
