Tag: seminar

City Plan 2030 – Shopping and Leisure Seminar

On 22 February 2019 we held a shopping and leisure seminar with people who work in this sector as well as people from community councils. The seminar was a chance to share findings from our research into the shopping and leisure market in Edinburgh. As with the seminars we held on housing and visitor accommodation, these events help us gather a range of views to help shape our policies for City Plan 2030.

The event included an open discussion with a number of issues and queries raised.

The speakers included Cllr Neil Gardiner, Convener of the Planning Commitee, who welcomed the attendees to the seminar:

 

Daisy Narayanan (Project Director, the City of Edinburgh Council) who talked about the progress of the Edinburgh City Centre Transformation project:

 

Keith Miller (Senior Planner, the City of Edinburgh Council) who shared the context and timing of City Plan 2030, and our research and monitoring done on the subject of the shopping and leisure market in the city;

 

and Dr Mark Robertson (Ryden) who covered the draft retail and leisure commercial needs study which was commissioned by us to inform our retail policies for City Plan 2030;

 

Part of the draft study can be seen below, including some detailed findings on the number of shops, rent and vacant units in our town centres. You may not know that Portobello town centre has the lowest rent costs but also the lowest rate of vacancy in the city, and that Leith/Leith Walk has the most shops of all centres:

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The city centre has been rated highly in surveys which were done as part of this study:

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And access to shops outside of centres was covered, with this map showing parts of the city which are within walking distance of a food or local grocery shop:

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The Ryden study includes a lot of data, but a few key points include;

  • Vacancy levels have fallen since the recession, and are below the Scottish average.
  • Although not the biggest shopping and leisure market, Edinburgh city centre ranks highly on quality. Edinburgh St James will continue to shift the market to the east of the city.
  • The reduction in comparison goods shops has been offset by higher numbers of leisure and service uses, although spending on comparison goods (which shoppers buy less often, and will compare prices, features and quality between products and shops before buying) is forecast to grow up to 2028.
  • There is enough convenience shopping space to allow for the expected growth of the city up to 2028.

These are all trends we will need to address as we continue to shape our policies. This is only part of the research that is going into City Plan 2030, and as the plan moves forward we will be getting more views and consulting on what the plan should include. You can keep track and take part by:

City Plan 2030 – Shopping and Leisure

We are continuing our series of topic stakeholder events, where we discuss a key topic to be addressed by City Plan 2030 (such as housing or visitor accommodation) and invite people who work in these areas and are a way of sharing and gaining knowledge in these topics, with our next event on the shopping and leisure sector in Edinburgh. At this seminar we would like to share early findings of our market research in this sector.

This includes the work we already do to keep track of retail floorspace, empty units and types of shops. For example, we conduct a survey of all shop units in the city to look at the health of the retail sector and see how our shopping policies are working.

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All shops are surveyed every five years while the city centre and our 8 town centres are surveyed once a year.

In recent years, there has been a decrease in the number of ‘comparison goods’ shops (where shoppers buy from less often, and will compare prices, features and quality between products and shops before buying) and at the same time an increase in non-retail uses such as hair salons, cafes and restaurants.

The number of vacant units has fallen in recent years, across the city and in most of our town centres. The supplementary guidance we use to set out where and how other uses, such as food and drink, are to be allowed in our centres plays a key role in this by encouraging other uses in the right places to reduce the number of empty units as the shopping and leisure market changes.

We also review our guidance when needed and ask for your views on what kind of uses we should allow and where.

Watch this space for more on our shopping and leisure seminar! In the meantime you can keep track of City Plan 2030 by:

City Plan 2030 – Visitor Accommodation Seminar

As City Plan 2030 moves forward, we are holding more events on key subjects such as the Housing Seminar we shared just over a week ago. The events are attended by people who work in these areas and are a way of sharing and gaining knowledge in specific topics.

Our most recent event was on the subject of visitor accommodation, (such as hotels, short-term lets, hostels and guest houses) dealing with the growth of tourism and the impact on the property market.

We invited those involved in building or running visitor accommodation, or with a stake in this activity. With over 60 people signed up to attend, we heard from a range of perspectives.

The first speaker was Jim Galloway,  our Head of Enterprise and Innovation at the Council, who covered the trends in tourist numbers over the last few years, why they have changed, and what issues may affect these numbers in the future.

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The next speakers were Dr Mark Robertson of Ryden, Andrew Renouf of GVA and Ian Derrick of GVA who discussed the current state of the property market for this sector.

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This was followed by a discussion session with input from both industry and community representatives, on the topic of how to address the growth of visitor numbers in City Plan 2030, with a range of views given and discussed.

The final speaker was Keith Miller from our City Plan team who gave an outline of City Plan 2030 and how we will be involving more people in the discussion in the future.

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The event was closed by Councillor Lezley Cameron who rounded off the event and addressed a few key points and issues which came up.

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Next year we intend to hold a further event on the subject of the retail and leisure sector. Watch this space! If you’d like to give us your own views on this subject, let us know in the comments, or email us at cityplan2030@edinburgh.gov.uk

City Plan 2030 – Housing Seminar

We want to include the views of people involved in housing in Edinburgh as we prepare City Plan 2030, so as part of our consultation we held a housing seminar last Friday and invited a range of people representing groups with a stake in building and providing housing.

We invited Councillors, colleagues and representatives from Homes for Scotland, Shelter Scotland and ESPC to present on a number of topics.

The event was kicked off by Councillor Neil Gardiner, Convener of the Planning Committee and Kate Campbell, Convener of the Housing and Economy Committee:

 

Speakers then talked about how to deliver the housing the city needs:

 

…and about the challenges and opportunities for housing:

 

After this a discussion was held amongst the groups of guests. All groups were asked “What makes a good place?”

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Themes which came up:

  • People and communities are key.
  • Early engagement in the planning process.
  • The importance of connectivity and infrastructure such as transport and schools.
  • Direct approach to bringing forward housing sites.
  • The right mix of tenures and housing types needs to be found to tackle high prices.
  • More certainty through long-term planning.

We enjoyed hosting this event and think the guests did too. We also found it very useful and look forward to having more of these discussions as work on City Plan 2030 proceeds.

We hope to post guest blogs in the future on the subject about what makes a good place to live. Watch this space!