Edinburgh urged to stop building new hotels and 'reimagine' a different future

Half a century after it was last in proper use, the old Royal High School on Calton Hill is once again facing an uncertain future after a protracted battle to turn it into a luxury hotel was rejected by its near neighbour, the Scottish Government.

The response to a long-awaited ruling from ministers following a public inquiry into its proposed £75 million transformation was unsurprisingly divided, with the developers behind the project dismayed and baffled, while heritage groups and the backers of a rival scheme to turn it into a new home for a music school totally elated.

Meanwhile, the city council, the long-time owner of the building, is still locked into a legal agreement with the hotel developers but under pressure to rip it up to allow the music school development to proceed, and must somehow try to navigate a way forward.

It would be a difficult enough task were opinions not sharply divided on the future of the city centre.

Tensions have been building for several years over Edinburgh’s pursuit of hotel developers and year-round tourism, amid growing concern about the city centre’s ability to cope with the numbers flocking during peak periods, declining numbers of local residents in the face of the growth of Airbnb, and the sustainability of being a global tourism destination in the midst of an escalating climate crisis.

New hotels have long been seen as a potential saviour of Princes Street in the face of fears that the new St James development, which is due to open next year in the city’s end, will draw shoppers and retailers away from the famous thoroughfare.

The scale of the crisis facing the city’s existing hotels was brought into sharp focus this week when a new report revealed that Edinburgh had seen the most dramatic slump in the performance of its hotels of any city in the city, with room rates plummeting by nearly two thirds. News that a planned transformation of the Jenners department store into a hotel had been put on hold is a further body blow.

The city council has just instigated a new masterplan for Princes Street and the adjacent “Waverley Valley”, to take into account the impact of the climate crisis and the pandemic, and ensure a healthy balance” of users is created in future.