Edinburgh's new tourist tax has exposed a problem politicians ignore

It is too early to say how much of a difference Edinburgh’s “visitor levy” will make, but just days into the festivals and a noticeable impact has been the increased police presence in the city centre. With groups of three or four officers in their chess board baseball hats and hi-viz stab vests it’s as if there’s a royal event at St Giles, although they didn’t keep the High Street clear for Sunday morning’s processions from the City Chambers for the Festival service.

For the £50 million annual revenue the tourist tax is expected to raise by 2028-29, residents are entitled to expect more evidence of the extra revenue than a few more beat cops – I’m told there are still fewer boots on the ground than when the old Edinburgh City force was swallowed by Lothian & Borders in 1975 – but I remain sceptical that the Capital will be able to take full advantage of the new revenue stream as the Scottish Government examines the options for meeting this year’s promise to save £1.5 billion, while councils face a total budget shortfall of about £530m in the next financial year.

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Some evidence for my cynicism is from the Scottish Government’s initial reluctance to help fund the recovery of Princes Street from the Debenhams fire, certainly in marked contrast to the urgency which followed Glasgow’s Union Street blaze, which ministers partially explained away because of the imminent Commonwealth Games. Yet the Glasgow fire was over four months before the start of the Games, but it’s only a month since Debenhams was burnt down, and the economic impact of the Games was around £740 million compared to an estimated £850 million for the festivals. Where is the sense of priority?

Although £5 million was eventually forthcoming, holidaying First Minister John Swinney found time to send messages about nationalist folk troubadour Dougie MacLean but not about the prolonged severing of Scotland’s most famous street.

The lack of dynamic and forceful leadership in Edinburgh is only part of the problem, because there’s no reason to believe that charismatic replacements for the current low-key incumbents, the council political leader, Labour’s Jane Meagher and Lord Provost Robert Aldridge, nice people though they may be, would change the Scottish Government’s reluctance to maximise Edinburgh’s potential as the number one economic driver for the rest of Scotland.

Previous council leadership produced the risible 2050 City Vision which was little more than vacuous catchphrases about everyone having a nice life, not a strategy for driving growth. Launched in 2020, its motherhood and apple pie recipe – “Striving to ensure Edinburgh’s citizens are happy, safe and healthy” − was so successful it had to be relaunched three years later.

The prevailing national attitude – and it goes back to Jack McConnell’s time as the last Labour First Minister, and his decision to move Scottish Natural Heritage from Edinburgh to Inverness in 2003 – is that Edinburgh gets more than enough of its fair share.

Political spanners are thrown into the works, like the inexplicable objections to what was originally known as the Garden Village at Gogar, only now getting under way a decade after receiving planning permission. And of course there is the reluctance to invest in transport infrastructure – it’s 20 years since the legislation to approve the Borders Railway was passed − in one of the few places in Scotland to demonstrate sustained population growth throughout that time. Never mind tram extensions, Sheriffhall Roundabout anyone? Or Winchburgh railway station?

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It’s not that good things don’t happen in Edinburgh, just that they seem in spite, not because of political leadership, and the International Festival, and the component parts which feed from it, is one. Despite the huge benefits they bring, both economically and reputationally, the festivals face an annual battle for resources, constantly having to justify their place and argue why they have not become too big. The anarchic Fringe does indeed continue to expand, but the International Festival programme is still lighter than it was 20 years ago, a reflection of the decline of corporate Scotland under a political establishment which has paid lip service at most to the nation’s commercial health.

This year’s International Festival theme of “All Rise” could not be a more apt message for a city which seems stuck, just as its rivals elsewhere in the UK are feeling energised, rightly or wrongly, by the change of leadership at Westminster. Last weekend’s opening concert, a stunning performance of the symphony of the same name composed by trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, husband of Festival director Nicola Benedetti, was a metaphor for what Edinburgh can achieve when talents are pulled together − the Festival Chorus, the musicians of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and Marsalis leading the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra − to produce something of true world quality which lifts the rest of the event.

Give Edinburgh the tools and everyone in Scotland can benefit, but too often the approach is that it has enough already so it can afford to give something away, rather than let it grow even stronger so the benefits it brings will spread. As the old saying goes, a rising tide floats all boats, but Scotland seems more interested in defensive breakwaters. And if they can be taxed, so much the better.

John McLellan is a former Edinburgh Evening News and Scotsman editor, now director of the Scottish news publishing trade association, Newsbrands Scotland. Brought up in Glasgow, McLellan has lived and worked in Edinburgh for over 30 years, and was a City of Edinburgh councillor for the Scottish Conservatives from 2017-22.