Edinburgh Council sets out spending plans for £90m raised from tourist tax

Refurbishment of Princes Street, improvements to beachfronts and development of nature paths are set to come from £90m in income from the first three years of the new visitor levy.

Inverleith Park is set for £4m in investment and Leith Links is set for £2m, and £2m will be spent on building new public toilets in the city.

Housing will also get a boost, with £5m from the levy being used to borrow a larger sum and build over 400 homes, with many set to be affordable.

Cleansing will see a £7.9m windfall, and graffiti removal will get a £1.3m hike, while the Water of Leith will get £1m in improvements.

Funding will also be put towards improving setted streets in the city, at £3.85m, and £4m in improvement works will be done to some streets in the Old Town.

Footways in town centres across the city are set to be improved with a total spend of £4m, and Rose Street is lined up for a £2m upgrade.

Edinburgh’s beaches are also set for an injection of cash, with £2m lined up for the Cramond Foreshore and £2.5m for the Portobello Promenade.

The Leith Theatre is lined up for £4m to push it towards reopening, while £1.75m is to go towards a ‘Market Street arts hub’, and £3m is set to go to the old Royal High School.

Many of the larger investments, like refurbishing roads and buildings, will come from small amounts of levy money used to finance debt, which will be paid for going forward.

Refurbishment to Princes Street, and new nature and walking paths through the city, will also get funding, though the exact amount is not currently clear.

The Causey Project and the Portobello Kilns are also set to get money, as is funding for improved transport links to the Lost Shore and EICC.

Most of the projects with unclear amounts of funding are set to be paid for by the deprioritisation of the George Street – First New Town project.

The scheme, which was lined up for debt spending using money from the levy, would have largely pedestrianised George Street.

The total take from the levy is set to come in over £100m over the first three years, but there are certain funding priorities which need to be met before the remainder can be disbursed.

Of the cash brought in by the scheme, certain amounts – including the £5m for housing, and 2% of the overall take for ‘participatory budgeting’, were set aside.

‘Participatory budgeting’ will see decisions on spending about £2m devolved to city residents – though the plans for this have not yet been established.

Costs for administering the visitor levy itself – which is a 5% tax on stays up to five days – and for contingencies were also set aside.

Just over half of the remaining money from the levy will be spent on improvements that are aimed at directly benefiting residents or residents and visitors.

But by the rules of the scheme, Edinburgh had to spend large portions of the remaining income on ‘culture, heritage and events’ funding and on ‘destination and visitor management’.

The following list of spending plans is mixed with projects listed earlier in the story. This article covers most, but not all, of what will be funded by the levy.

City operations and infrastructure

£2.75m for 45 new police in the city centre
£300k for new litter bins
£1.1m for adding landscaping across the city
£951k for events management
£360k for the Summertime Streets project
£160k for improvements to Cockburn Street
£1.6m for new retaining walls and other ‘hard landscaping’
£1.375k for public toilet maintenance
£1.15m for public lighting and dressing
£440k for improvements to 12 closes in the city centre
£780k for increased CCTV
£1.02m for City Centre ambassadors
£976k for a ‘Premier Parks’ maintenance team
£750k for a ‘welfare hub’ and mobile service
£1.5m for event management in the Meadows
£375k for event management in Princes Street and the Waverley Valley
£1m for sustainable events infrastructure
£100k for a new coach strategy

Culture, heritage and events funding

£3.5m for events investments, including opening and closing events for the festivals
£1.55m for programming put on by the council, including at the Ross Bandstand
£2m for ‘accessible and affordable culture’
£4.75m for ‘strategic partners’
£1.61m for a ‘creatives fund’ – though this may shift into the prior fund.
£3.8m for accessibility and sustainability for venues
£3m for investments in heritage assets
£700k for public art

Destination and visitor management funding