Edinburgh's West Town: A new city rising – or a chance slipping away?

All of this is slated for West Edinburgh, an area stretching from Maybury out to the airport, close to the tram line and the A8. A new community of high-quality homes and green space.

This west Edinburgh story is only just beginning and for several reasons it should be one of the most notable developments in the whole of the UK.

The population of Scotland’s capital is growing. And the demand for housing, whether rented or owner-occupied, is soaring.  Renters need them. Buyers want them. Businesses demand them. Politicians talk about them.

Frank O'Donnell (Image: Handout)

In short, it’s the subject that (almost) everyone agrees on: we need more houses to underpin economic growth, not only in rural areas but also in our cities.

Planning permission has already been granted for homes in the Garden District. In December permission was granted for a further 10,000 homes alongside the tram line to the Airport in two developments known as West Town and Elements Edinburgh.

But progress remains painfully slow.

There has been much talk about Scotland (and Britain’s) cumbersome planning system. A system that seems to revel in delay, one that sometimes appears to prioritise red tape, and even wildlife, over people. And one which often drives international investment elsewhere.

This is partly true. We do need faster decisions. But that’s only half the story.

After planning, housebuilders need to pay money to the local authority towards the building of schools, health centres and public transport, known as Section 75 contributions.

Few would argue with this as a principle. Why should Edinburgh City Council foot the bill to upgrade roads and build new schools?

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But the level of contributions in Edinburgh are now leaving developers struggling for breath and unable to see a way forward.

The contributions, which run into tens of millions for some developments, are now a significant barrier to spades in the ground.

But this is not all.

Finding the construction companies that are able to take on the work is also a challenge, contributing further to delays and increased costs.

If you are already a homeowner in Edinburgh you might shrug your shoulders and ask: ‘so what if some new houses are delayed?’

But the chronic shortage of housing – estimated at over 100,000 in Scotland since the financial crash in 2008 – is acting as a drag on investment and jobs for Scotland’s economy which affects us all. More than this, good quality housing is central to a fairer, sustainable and thriving Scottish economy and society.

In Edinburgh, the issue is particularly acute.

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The city’s private rented sector has the highest rents in Scotland and soaring rental inflation is pushing families towards an already overstretched social sector, and in some cases to homelessness.

In Edinburgh the average house price is almost 80% higher than the Scottish average. In the private rented sector, the average three bed rental price is around £1450 per month, £300 higher than the Scottish average.

The Scottish Housing Regulator has stated that the housing system in Edinburgh is in systemic failure, with further pressures looming related to asylum and refugee arrivals in the city.

For more than 20 years Edinburgh has largely subcontracted its needs for new homes to local authority neighbours in West, East and Midlothian. Cross the city boundary to the south around Gilmerton and Dalkeith and you quickly get a flavour of this. And it’s continuing. In 2024, East Lothian and Midlothian had the highest rate of new build completions in Scotland.

While this has helped to meet demand – a great number of families living outside the city are commuting back into the city daily for work. This puts pressure on road and increases air pollution.

Housing emergency

It is now 19 months since Edinburgh formally declared a Housing Emergency in the city. The Scottish Government followed with a national housing emergency in May 2024.

The word emergency typically implies a need for immediate action and evokes images of stop-everything-else-and-deal-with-this. There should be sirens but the silence is deafening.

Instead of an emergency imagine a piece of paper sitting in an in-tray for two months, followed by an oblique and unhelpful response delivered via second class post.

Declaring an emergency could have been a useful vehicle to catalyse urgent action. Instead it is becoming a policy joke that isn’t very funny.

The problem is acute in rural areas where a lack of homes threatens to stall Scotland’s economic growth and our ability to take advantage of the growth in renewable energy.

But in Scotland’s capital the issue is, for different reasons, especially problematic.

Leadership

There is no shortage of goodwill. Paul Lawrence, the new chief executive of Edinburgh City Council, came from economic development and understands only too well the importance of getting this right. And that doing so, would likely mark his tenure as a major success.

The Scottish Government, the UK government and the industry are all making the right noises. What is absent is real knock-heads-together leadership of the kind we see in English cities like Manchester. A structure which allows one department to get everyone around the table to work through problems and move things on. Right now, this feels like a system problem with no clear way forward. There isn’t even a national housebuilding target in Scotland, unlike in England.

And yet Scotland does have examples of success. Look west at the Clyde Gateway project and you will see progress across local authority boundaries, and real positivity and leadership.

Perhaps we need west Edinburgh to be renamed Forth Gateway – or something more imaginative. West Edinburgh could be a model of modern, green, high-density, liveable city planning – the kind of place other countries write case studies about.

The opportunity is clear. Act now, or the prize of a new urban district – and all it could deliver – will slip through our fingers.

Frank O’Donnell is a former editor of the Edinburgh Evening News and The Scotsman, and a senior partner with Charlotte Street Partners