Edinburgh councillors have got a problem. Nobody trusts them – Kevin Buckle

News that Norman Springford was to quit as the figurehead of the redevelopment of West Princes Street Gardens after growing concerns about the Quaich Project’s impact was a surprise to many.

An artist's impression of the redeveloped Ross Bandstand site

News that Norman Springford was to quit as the figurehead of the redevelopment of West Princes Street Gardens after growing concerns about the Quaich Project’s impact was a surprise to many.

Certainly all the concerns raised when it was revealed how funds were to be secured were understandable but what didn’t help at all was that these plans were revealed in this paper rather than presented to the public in a more palatable manner.

READ MORE: Edinburgh councillors to press ahead with £25m overhaul of Princes Street Gardens

Quite whether the blame for trying to commercialise the Gardens was all being laid at Norman Springford’s door I’m not so sure but he seemed to think his background as a developer was distracting from the good intentions of the project and to be fair he made it clear his £5 million donation would stand.

The thing is Mr Springford is probably only third in line when it comes to people’s concerns behind Underbelly and Edinburgh Council. That Underbelly can have an effect on a development that they aren’t even involved in only goes to show how much doubt their handling of this year’s Christmas Market and Hogmanay celebrations has created.

More logical and a serious consideration is the doubts raised about Edinburgh Council’s involvement, which of course is essential. Certainly the council could help itself by at least sometimes holding its hands up and admitting mistakes have been made.

To some extent how people react to the Quaich Project will depend on how the council deal with the Underbelly fiasco, which it goes without saying is out of the project’s hands. While the council continues to not accept how damaged it is in these matters, telling the public they will have a final say on any commercial considerations is no reassurance at all.

All seemed to have started promisingly with that well-worn word “stakeholders” being involved, including some who are now critical, but things have deteriorated to a point that while starting again from scratch would be an overreaction all involved need to sit down and constructively come up with a way forward.

There is no doubt that some sort of redevelopment is needed and certainly access needs to be improved so it is to everybody’s benefit that a way of raising funds to pay for that is found that is generally thought to be acceptable.

The problem is that people not only don’t trust this administration but indeed the next one. This of course is not a new thing; whether it be the spiralling costs of the trams and the disruption the works caused or indeed the flawed pedestrianisation of the Grassmarket the council has form for screwing up badly now stretching back many years and there will be another reminder soon – whatever the outcome over the Royal High School hotel – that the council wanted a hotel, and indeed offered the building as a hotel, only to later change its mind.

If you asked me to predict the council’s next massive miscalculation I would say it will be the devastation to surrounding businesses that the opening of the Edinburgh St James will cause, given the fact that they currently seem to think that allowing more restaurants and hotels on Princes Street will be a solution to the many empty shops.

Add to that the already well documented fragility of the high street and moving that much business to the Edinburgh St James will hit the remaining shops badly. That you would be hard pushed to even name a handful of councillors who would call themselves businessmen or women is probably at the root of all the problems.