More CCTV, better lighting, transport marshals, the sharing of crime intelligence with businesses, and a Child Safe Scheme.
These are among the plans for Edinburgh city centre after businesses voted in favour to create a Business Improvement District – the first in the Capital and the fifth in Scotland. The others: Falkirk, Bathgate town centre, Inverness city centre and Clackmannanshire Business Park.
Andrew Murphy, Chairman of Edinburgh’s Advisory BID Board, said: "I am absolutely delighted that Edinburgh’s city centre businesses have voted in favour of the Essential Edinburgh Business Improvement District (BID). This positive result is an extremely important development, which will give us a significantly better chance of seeing Edinburgh realise its full potential as one of the world’s best cities for business, shoppers, tourists and workers. The BID mandate will allow us to improve the environmental attractiveness of the area, make the city centre even safer than it is now, lobby more effectively to improve transport links into and around the area, and give us a highly effective platform for promoting the city centre in a focused and compelling way.
"There is evidence from all over the world that BIDs work. For example, London’s West End BID has seen total crime within its area reduce by 12%. In Times Square, New York, crime has decreased 60%. I very much look forward to seeing Edinburgh join the world league of successful BIDs and believe that even those businesses who are initially sceptical of the value of the BID will come to appreciate their worth as our work gets underway from later in the summer.
City Centre Manager, Ian Broadfoot, said: "This is a fantastic result and one that has significant implications, not just for the city centre, but for the whole of Edinburgh. People have already seen how projects, such the redevelopment of the St Andrew’s Square Garden, can bring positive results. Now we have had a successful ballot, it means that we can really start to work on implementing a number of other exciting projects, which will allow Edinburgh to fulfil its potential as one of the UK’s very best retail, commercial and leisure locations."
The successful ballot means that the Essential Edinburgh BID company will now be charged with implementing a number of key task within the BID area, such as environmental improvements, enhanced security, safety measures, and focused marketing. Work will begin on the formation of the new company, with operations expected to begin over the next few months.
The BID Advisory Board members were:
Dave Anderson, Scottish Enterprise Edinburgh and Lothians
Ian Bell, Royal Bank of Scotland plc
Ian Elder, House of Fraser
Ron Hewitt, Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce
Roger Littlewood, HBOS plc
Andrew Murphy, Managing Director, John Lewis Edinburgh and Aberdeen
Vinnie O’Brien, Standard Life Investments
Denzil Skinner, Hamilton & Inches
David Stewart, DM Stewart
Jane Wood, Alliance Boots
Gordon Drummond, Harvey Nichols
As well as funding from the Scottish Government and City of Edinburgh Council, the development of the BID has been financially supported by HBOS and GVA Grimley. The concept of BIDs originated in North America and is now in place in over 60 locations in England and Wales – this number is on the increase. Edinburgh is now the 5th BID in Scotland.
Edinburgh City Centre Management is a not-for-profit public-private sector partnership whose overall aim is to promote, develop and improve Edinburgh City Centre for the benefit of businesses, residents and visitors. Essential Edinburgh proposed to carry out area promotion, make the area cleaner and more attractive, more safe and secure and improve accessibility and the image of the city centre to car users. For Business Improvement Districts Scotland, visit: www.bids-scotland.co.uk
