Edinburgh councillors back less radical option for future of Princes Street
‘It is difficult not to come away feeling this is little more than a glorified resurfacing project’ - Cllr Kevin Lang
Councillors have rejected a "radical rethink" of Princes Street which could have narrowed the carriageway to one lane each way and excavated under the pavement to create restaurants and cafes facing into the Gardens.
Instead they backed a more modest plan, which Lib Dem councillor Kevin Lang branded "a glorified resurfacing project".
It will see widened footways, new natural stone paving, public seating, longer opening hours for the Gardens, shelters turned into cafes, an upgrade for the Ross bandstand, a lift down into the Gardens and new or improved public toilets and drinking fountains.
The city's planning committee had been presented with two options - the successful proposal drawn up by council officials, which they labelled "ambitious pragmatism", and an alternative approach - described as a "radical rethink" - based on a design by Edinburgh architect Richard Murphy, which would have included even wider pavements, cycle lanes, removing the railings from Princes Street Gardens and creating the under-pavement restaurants.
The committee had last year thrown out council officials' Princes Street and Waverley Valley Strategy as lacking ambition and imagination. Cllr Lang said the revised proposals were an improvement, but the question was whether this was “as good as it gets”.
He told the committee: "I think there is a real desire out there, among the people of the city, to think big, to be bold and to be brave when it comes to Princes Street. This should be a thriving, vibrant, exciting epicentre of this great city, a place where people want to come and spend time in, a place to experience and enjoy and we are far, far away from that."
He said people spoke of Princes Street as sad, confused and a shadow of its former self.
"We've seen from the work Richard Murphy did the kind of vision that can inspire and excite us to rethink this space. And yet it looks like a majority of this committee will reject that opportunity and go for further incremental change. It is difficult not to come away feeling this is little more than a glorified resurfacing project."
He accused the SNP, who had backed his rejection of the strategy last year, of "caving in" and said he knew there were "many" in the SNP group who wanted to go further and saw this as a chance to "transform the core city centre for the better".
And he continued: "I fear that the decision not to be bigger, bolder and braver, will haunt people for a long time."
But convener Joan Griffiths said: "Option 1 means we can start straight away, it's not something that we have to wait for a consultation on or for procurement, which all takes time and adds to the cost."
She said it would make Princes Street Gardens much more accessible and added it would not preclude other improvements in the future.
SNP councillor David Key said Option 2, the radical rethink, could mean "this particular can being kicked down a very long road for a very long time" before anything happened.
Option 1 was pragmatic, could be done on a reasonable timescale, was fundable and would not cause huge disruption to the city centre. "We think Edinburgh residents have had enough major disruption over the past few years."
The Greens did not back either option, but called for work to proceed without delay on accessibility improvements, improved lighting and longer opening hours at Princes Street Gardens, expanding the footway along Princes Street, and more space for pedestrians waiting at bus stops.
And they wanted officials to look at how motorised vehicles, other than local buses, could be reduced or excluded from Princes Street. Green councillor Alex Staniforth said: "We should be providing more for cyclists. We should be a modern city that is easy to cycle through and at the moment I couldn't say that is true."
Conservative Max Mitchell backed Option 1. He said: "It is so important to get the basics right and focusing on doing that is more important than having another grand strategy."
Officials will now prepare a revised Princes Street and Waverley Valley Strategy, based on the proposals approved by committee, and bring it back for discussion in “early 2027”.