Engaging

ENGAGING with all relevant bodies 2018-23 spend £36k

A thriving city centre shapes its own future.

Over ten years, we have built influence, cementing key relationships that ensure our businesses have a strong collective voice and a seat at every table where key decisions are made.

We’re renewing our commitment at this important time, engaging with developers as the commercial landscape of our city centre changes and co-ordinating with organisations that can make a real difference to issues that affect our area.

We will continue to save you money, encourage resilience, seize opportunities and liaise with the City of Edinburgh Council to challenge baseline service reductions.

Powerful partnerships Over the next five years, our team will continue to dedicate time to building powerful partnerships. Innovation and collaboration have allowed us to deliver exceptional initiatives that simply couldn’t happen without the understanding, commitment and resources of the BID to underpin them.

Essential Edinburgh has attracted over £1.4m of additional income by working smarter for the city centre; finding partners with common interest and an agenda that benefits our businesses.

We will pursue new opportunities for savings and efficiencies through group buying initiatives such as our trade waste and utilities projects. Ongoing cost savings and reductions in CO2 emissions continue to benefit the city centre through our award-winning partnership with Changeworks Recycling - a flagship example of the power of working collectively.

Joining forces with the Smart Street Sensor project from LDC and University College London, we’ve secured detailed footfall information across our area for a fraction of the normal cost of installing counters. Over the last five years, we’ve trebled our capacity to capture these valuable metrics and continue to share them through Essential Trends.

“The Voodoo Rooms on West Register Street is in the centre of major long-term developments of Edinburgh St James and The Registers, and the BID is an essential partner moving forward, helping us manage that process of change and getting our voices heard. We feel there has never been a more important time to be represented by a larger organisation like Essential Edinburgh.” Brendan Denahy, The Voodoo Rooms

Driving decisions Representing your views on over 19 partnership groups, Essential Edinburgh plays an active part in shaping our city.

We’ve influenced on your behalf to introduce new licensing for ‘chuggers’, piloted successful changes to improve citywide waste regulations and driven the introduction of a workable Public Spaces Protocol for the city centre.

Bringing Edinburgh’s Christmas into the heart of the BID has actively increased festive footfall and helped to increase hospitality and retail sales year on year during these crucial trading periods.

We create pedestrian-friendly spaces during the summer months, bringing festival goers into our area and encouraging them to linger longer in the city centre. This vital collaboration between the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Edinburgh International Festival, Fringe Festival and Council would not happen without Essential Edinburgh’s central co-ordination. Drawing on our experience of working within the new Public Spaces Protocol, we will continue to ensure that any business concerns are acted upon, that the quality of activity is in keeping with our surroundings and that it ultimately serves to benefit our levy paying businesses.

The public realm in Rose Street is of major concern for businesses and the general public. Using our significant lobbying power we will strive to ensure the Council and their appointed contractors address these issues and deliver works in a sympathetic and business focused manner over the course of our third term.

During the fifteen-month George Street Trial Project we gathered vital research that is shaping the street’s future. Ensuring your interests are fully represented, Essential Edinburgh has taken on the responsibility of chairing the George Street Re-Design Steering Group.

China Ready Chinese visitors to Scotland are already the largest, highest spending visitor group ever seen, with numbers set to more than double by 2020 with the anticipated opening of new air routes. “We found ourselves falling foul of the Council’s rules and regulations which apply to trade waste, and getting fined. Changeworks Recycling comes into the office to collect the waste, taking it away so we don’t have to worry about falling foul again. We also know that most of it will be recycled. The whole process is taken out of our hands and we don’t have to worry.” Alan Simpson, WJM

Collaborating with the China Ready Group we’ll deliver a strategy that supports business engagement and grows our strong presence on Chinese social channels like Weibo and WeChat.

From creating practical guidelines to developing best practice in providing the warmest possible welcome, we’ll ensure that our BID is China ready.

Developing Edinburgh New developments will have a massive impact on our city centre over the next five years, with over 100 additional properties joining our BID community by 2020.

Throughout the development process, Essential Edinburgh has provided a vital forum to allow planners, council officials and developers to co-ordinate with businesses and each other.

Increased diversity in our commercial, retail and lifestyle offering will act as a footfall magnet for our city centre.

The Registers, Edinburgh St James, the redevelopment of the former BHS building and

the proposed new concert hall near St Andrew Square will give Edinburgh a massive boost. We’re committed to continued collaboration, ensuring that these newcomers are fully integrated into our existing business community and that the benefits are felt by all.

Edinburgh Training Academy - FUSE In preparation for the opening of Edinburgh St James, we are supporting the developers, Edinburgh City Council, the Capital City Partnership and local educational establishments with the creation of the new Edinburgh Training Academy, FUSE. The objective of FUSE is to ensure that visitors to Edinburgh St James and the wider city centre experience world class customer service, with associated business benefits such as increased footfall, spend and return visits.

This innovative concept will deliver high quality training for retail, leisure and hospitality sectors across the city centre. We will support career opportunities and advancement to enable our levy payers to have high quality training opportunities for all their staff.

The city-wide working relationships will be used to design and source funding for bespoke, high quality training routes into the sector. It will also inform training organisations and employability providers about the skills and behaviours that recruits will need to thrive in the retail and hospitality sector. ‘FUSE is a fundamental part of the Edinburgh St James project. It will deliver world-class customer service training that will benefit Edinburgh St James, the wider Essential Edinburgh BID district, and the Edinburgh City Region as a whole, helping to bridge skills gaps in the retail, leisure and hospitality sectors. FUSE will complement our recruitment skills centres at Edinburgh Airport and Fort Kinnaird and will work collaboratively with key city partners including schools, colleges, universities and local communities so that more people benefit from Edinburgh’s success.’

Councillor Gavin Barrie, Convener of the City of Edinburgh Council’s Housing and Economy Committee

This collaborative, cross-sector project will promote employment within these key sectors as an excellent career choice and enable the city to have a highly trained workforce in place to manage the increased demand both in numbers and quality.

Pedestrian wayfinding With 84% of businesses asking us to enhance pedestrian wayfinding over the next five years, we’re working with the City of Edinburgh Council to implement an integrated and accessible system which will benefit all city centre businesses.