“This is an arts emergency,” stresses MSP Q Manivannan in the immediate aftermath of a packed-out meeting in Summerhall to discuss the future of the key creative hub.
“I think everybody here in this room and who was part of the conversations here [today] feels that sense of urgency.”
Manivannan was along with Summerhall Arts hosting the meeting titled ‘Edinburgh Arts in Crisis’, and it saw the Main Hall packed to the rafters, with about 200 people attending and much passion on display to defend the sector. Many people from the arts scene took their turn to address the audience, with regular applause, and shouting out of support.
The room was united in condemning the current plans to turn Summerhall, along with several buildings on the surrounding site, into a revamped mixed-use development. Edinburgh-based property developer AMA (New Town), says the proposal will create a “vibrant and flourishing” Arts Quarter, with an arts centre alongside hotel and residential accommodation, including purpose-built student flats, plus other commercial operations. It also said the relevant buildings “need significant investment and repair” and its plans include some demolition work.
Consultation on AMA’s plans are ongoing, as it seeks to submit a detailed planning application to City of Edinburgh Council in early 2027. It said the first consultation period closed last week, and all feedback “is being carefully considered” ahead of its second consultation event next month.
The developer, which is currently marketing a property on the city’s Belford Road for £2.5 million, told The Edinburgh Inquirer that its current proposals would provide “at least 17 per cent more arts space than is currently available and used across the site”.
However, Summerhall Arts has expressed concern that the plans “appear to earmark some of Summerhall’s most distinctive spaces for demolition,” with AMA set to knock down parts of the site, including space currently used as studios, to create hotel and student accommodation. Artists currently based onsite will need to relocate while building works are carried out, and should they want to return, rents look likely to be ramped up once that is complete.
‘Urgent need for affordable studio space’
The plans are part of the perceived onslaught on the arts in Edinburgh, which also includes outrage over plans to shutter Edinburgh College of Art courses dedicated to subjects key to the creative industries, such as costume design, and the impending loss of around 270 affordable studio spaces at St Margaret’s House in Meadowbank.
There are therefore set to be hundreds of artists looking for a new home. But where can they all be accommodated? Out of the Blue Arts and Education Trust earlier this year said the waiting list for the kind of flexible workspace it provides is now at 1,600. Last month (October) it said it understands the “urgent” need in Edinburgh for studio space for artists and organisations.
One attendee of the Summerhall meeting said: “I think we need to consider the social capital of these places, not just the economic capital. And the session called for opponents to the plans to make their feelings known via the relevant channels and unite in organised fashion, while suggested alternative proposals included a community ownership scheme.
Manivannan was joined onstage by various interested parties, including Labour’s Katherine Sangster, MSP for Edinburgh and Lothians East Region, who agreed that the city’s arts cuts constitutes a crisis. “It might even be described as cultural vandalism.”
Sangster, who is also shadow cabinet secretary for Education, Culture, and Gaelic, stated the creative industries are “the fastest-growing element of our economy, and more people are employed in the creative industries than in more conventional industries.”
A Scottish Government report found that the nation’s creative industries contribute more than £5.7 billion to the economy every year.
