Annual Review Year 14: 2021-2022

Year 14: April 2021 - March 2022

Annual Review

Contents 4 6 8 20 26 32 38 40 44

Team & Board Introduction Promoting Enhancing Protecting Engaging Renewal Ballot Accounts Get in Touch

©ESSENTIAL EDINBURGH 2022 The reproduction or publication of any part of this document is strictly prohibited.

ESSENTIAL EDINBURGH Annual Review April 2021 to March 2022 | 2

We are Essential Edinburgh, looking after you and our city centre.

Our hard working board and dedicated staff, though small in number, continue to deliver an amazing amount.

Team & Board The Team Emily Campbell Johnston Senior Manager, Marketing & Communications Diane Brown Renewal Manager Gillian James Business Engagement Manager Grant Roberts Business Engagement Manager Grant Stewart Senior Manager, Projects Mark Farvis Digital Media Manager Roddy Smith Chief Executive & Director

Essential Clean Team James Reilly, Contract Manager, Mitie (sub-contracted)

Directors Alan Thomlinson, Johnnie Walker Princes Street Barry Blamire, The John Lewis Partnership David Stewart, Abrdn David Stewart, DM Stewart Denzil Skinner, Chair Derek Brownlee, Royal Bank of Scotland Kieran Quinn, Kimpton Charlotte Square

Louise Maclean, Signature Group Lynzi Leroy, Scottish Design Exchange Nick Peel, St James Quarter Edinburgh Richard Morris, Harvey Nichols David Lindgren, Company Secretary Resigned during this year: Jenny Mcpartlin, M&S Josh Miller, Charlie Miller Hairdressing Councillor Kate Campbell, City of Edinburgh Council Louise Masson, Harvey Nichols

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The city centre is a magnificent place to operate, but we cannot take this for granted.

Working together, supporting new initiatives and placing business growth at the forefront of decision making, we can all look forward to a bright future.

Introduction It is our pleasure to present the annual review for the year to March 2022. Continuing its recovery from the Covid pandemic, Edinburgh city centre began to return to near normal during the year. Though footfall and sales were still behind 2019 levels, progress was visible and pleasing.

Changes in our city centre continue at pace with many buildings transforming to new and exciting uses. As our tagline historic past, exciting future describes, we must adapt to meet the challenges and embrace the potential of the future. We must

address issues including the changing nature of retail, home working, the importance of the visitor economy and city centre transformation to ensure we continue to thrive.

showing again the importance of having the Business Improvement District (BID) working both for - and in partnership with - the business community to support growth and progress.

The city centre is a magnificent place to operate, but we cannot take this for granted. Working together, supporting new initiatives and placing business growth at the forefront of decision making, we can all look forward to a bright future.

We thank our levy payers and our growing band of partners for their support during the year, making special mention of our hard working board and dedicated staff. Though small in number, they continue to deliver an amazing amount.

This report highlights fantastic events, achievements and developments throughout the year, Roddy Smith, CEO | Denzil Skinner, Chair ESSENTIAL EDINBURGH Annual Review April 2021 to March 2022 | 6

A vibrant city centre encourages people to visit it, spend time in it, want to work in it and return to it.

Promoting

Spend: £403,581 - 53% of Total BID Project Budget

We have carefully invested 53% of the total project budget in promoting the area, creating activity and engagement to support the BID community.

Footfall This reporting period started once again in lockdown due to Covid-19.

As you would expect footfall remained significantly below the levels seen in 2019. For the twelve months to March 2022 footfall was -22% on Princes Street compared to the same period in 2019/2020.

However, Princes Street footfall was considerably higher than 2020/2021 – up by 113%.

Sales Monitor Project

Edinburgh sales have taken a long while to begin their recovery. The average sales for this full reporting period were -12.6% for retail and -19.8% for hospitality compared to 2019/20.

At the start of this reporting year we were in lockdown, with retail sales in April -38% and hospitality -28% compared to 2019. As businesses re-opened and began trading the lack of office workers and visitors hit the city centre harder than any other area of Edinburgh. With reduced Fringe and International festival in August, hospitality businesses were the worst hit with sales

-51.2% compared to August 2019.

The much-needed Christmas party season was curtailed due to Scottish Government guidance with resurging Covid levels through December, and the much hoped for and anticipated spend in both retail and hospitality did not happen. Hospitality was -35.7% and -27% for retailers in December compared to 2019.

Figures began to creep back towards our benchmark of preCovid levels at the end of this reporting period. Retail was down by 6.9% and hospitality down 6.1% in March 2022 compared to March 2019.

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City centre hospitality sales for March rose monthly by 6.4%, footfall on Princes Street increased by an average of 8.2%.

Eat Out Edinburgh

ranking with more than 547K impressions creating over 5.6K New for 2022, and created to click throughs to the website. support our hospitality businesses, Facebook & Instagram reached Eat Out Edinburgh celebrated over 246K, with 384K paid the amazing food, drink and impressions. hospitality scene in the city centre.

We secured press trips for key Promoted to locals and residents contacts and influencers, media through social, digital and print, partnerships with The List, we encouraged them to re-engage Edinburgh Reporter, Edinburgh with city centre businesses.

Evening News/The Scotsman and i-on. This helped create 60+ There were over 30K unique pieces of print, digital & social visitors to the dedicated website media coverage, reaching a total with over 148K page views. Set audience of 1.3 million. menus racked up the most page views with over 12.5K, followed To highlight the success, by 7.6K views of the exclusive city Edinburgh City Centre hospitality centre employee offers. sales for March rose monthly by 6.4% and footfall on Princes Street Our Google Ads improved our

increased by an average of 8.2% compared to the previous 2-week period.

Eat Out Edinburgh will be taking place again in 2023, running from Monday 13th to Sunday 26th March. Please get in touch if you are interested in participating.

“We had five venues taking part and the venues saw a great drive in footfall. It wasn’t just locals that started to come out again, it was all the out of towners as well, and it was people who are now coming back in just because of that initial campaign.” - Hannah McConnachie, Signature Group

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62% of the audience went on to shop, eat and drink in the city centre, spending on average just over £62 each.

Film Fest in the City After a year’s break due to Covid, our Film Fest in the City event returned to St Andrew Square Garden for the tenth year.

Due to enforced reductions to our capacity because of Covid, and to maximise the potential audience reach, we doubled our investment and ran the event in August for seven days rather than three.

Collaborating with Edinburgh International Film Festival and Unique events, we saw 16,500 visitors attending with 63% coming in especially for the event.

62% of the audience went on to shop, eat and drink in the city centre, spending on average just

over £62 each. The return on investment was 16:1.

As in all previous years our levypaying businesses were given the opportunity to place a free advert on the giant screen between films, with 83 businesses participating.

Social and Digital Engagement Through our social and digital city centre channels we are able to provide our businesses with a platform to directly engage their local audience. More than 200 business offers were promoted during this reporting period.

We have also continued to keep our communications with levypayers and the public active and engaging, growing our following.

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We are Essential Edinburgh, looking after you and our city centre.

With over 109,000 loyal subscribers and over 309m content views to March 2022 the official Edinburgh Weibo and WeChat channels remain top of the world.

China Ready: Weibo & WeChat With over 109K loyal subscribers and over 309m content views to March 2022, the official Edinburgh Weibo and WeChat channels remain top of the world. They continue to outperform all other European destinations, putting Edinburgh and local businesses in an exceptionally strong position in the tourism recovery from China.

For Chinese New Year 2022, working in partnership with ETAG and Heriot Watt University’s Confucius Institute for Business and Communication, businesses in the BID were featured in the official Edinburgh Chinese New Year celebratory programme.

With 49 events and dedicated promotions, the Year of the Tiger campaign reached a large audience through media, outdoor Through our collaboration with the telephone box sites and social Edinburgh Tourism Action Group media.

(ETAG) China Ready Initiative we have a regular platform to promote the BID area and engage with this Van Gogh Alive growing audience, especially the In March 2022, at the end of this large number of UK based Chinese reporting period, we welcomed students.

Van Gogh Alive to Edinburgh.

Partnering with them we were able

to offer tickets for competition prizes to a selection of levy-paying businesses as well as link the district through marketing to their 141.4k visitors.

Edinburgh Cocktail Week In October 2021 Essential Edinburgh became the supporting partner of Edinburgh Cocktail Week (ECW). It was a sell-out year with 23,000 wristband-holders and showing annual growth of 35%.

From the data supplied by bars in the BID, businesses benefited with over £456,000 of sales from their ECW signature cocktails.

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We are Essential Edinburgh, looking after you and our city centre.

A vibrant city centre encourages people to visit it, spend time in it, want to work in it and return to it.

George Street Ice Rink

Festival of Kindness

Encouraging locals and visitors to spend time in the area, and to linger longer, is one of our top priorities.

For the second time we partnered with Social Bite for Christmas 2021 to deliver the Festival of Kindness in St Andrew Square Garden.

It was of particular importance to have an anchoring activity to the west of the district, counterbalancing our festive activity in St Andrew Square Garden and creating a pullthrough to benefit the whole area.

A fantastic Christmas tree and projections highlighted a dropoff point for Edinburgh residents and businesses to deliver gifts for those in need. This was hugely successful with more than 4,000 gifts donated in Edinburgh and £5,264 raised through tap-todonate.

Following our significant investment, Christmas 2021 saw the return of the ice rink to our BID area and brought in an extra 260K footfall, and 75K skaters, to George Street.

and projections and installing giant Instagrammable light hoops and illuminated trees. With lighting in both Rose and George Street, the visual effect of the festive displays helped pull people through the area in both directions, creating a magical and truly festive feel.

George Street Festival

Due to the shift to mainly on-line activity of the Fringe Festival in 2021, we were unable to coordinate activity on George Street during this reporting year.

We continue to engage with all St Andrew Square At Christmas the festivals and venue operators to ensure the BID area remains For Christmas 2021 we ensured actively involved, with business the garden was as beautiful in benefitting from the additional the evenings as during the day, footfall, atmosphere and spend. increasing the enhanced lighting ESSENTIAL EDINBURGH Annual Review April 2021 to March 2022 | 16

We are Essential Edinburgh, looking after you and our city centre.

We work hard as a team, using every tool at our disposal, to share important and interesting information, helping you to stay engaged and updated.

Business Engagement Managers Our Business Engagement Managers are not just a key communication conduit, they are there to support your business in any way they can.

In this reporting year they were able to engage with 491 individual businesses, making 690 visits.

Communicating with you We work hard as a team, using every tool at our disposal, to share important and interesting information, helping you to stay engaged and updated.

We use all available digital

platforms, and our Business Engagement Managers, to keep the information flowing. Do make sure you are following us on social media, and that you are on our mailing list.

Forever Edinburgh We continue to support the delivery of the Forever Edinburgh marketing campaign, ensuring our city is marketed to domestic visitors and residents, and showcased to a national and international audience.

We are Essential Edinburgh, looking after you and our city centre.

1.88m engagements.

Through our partnership we have been able to introduce additional free promotional opportunities to member businesses. These included being featured in refreshed video content, PR activity, new blogs and listicles and the Resident Rewards programme – which saw almost 40.5K page views and over 3,000 business referrals for participating businesses.

All Forever Edinburgh materials, new images and video content In this reporting year the official are freely available to businesses website edinburgh.org had 5.87m to utilise, helping you to boost page views, with over 22m social your own message and reach new media impressions generating audiences.

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Grant Roberts and Gillian James, Business Engagement Managers

Our Clean Team have removed 23,530 bags of waste for recycling – an increase of 76% on the previous year.

Enhancing

Spend: £223,508 - 29% of Total BID Project Budget

We all want to have an atmospheric, clean and attractive year-round destination for all city centre users. We have strategically invested 29% of the total project budget to enhance the area and our continued investment ensures our district remains head and shoulders above other areas of the city.

Clean Team Throughout this reporting period our heroic Clean Team have continued to deliver an unrivalled additional cleansing service for our levy-payers. All their services are

above and beyond the statutory responsibility of Edinburgh Council.

cleaning up 16%.

From April 2021 to March 2022 the Clean Team removed 23,530 bags of waste for recycling – an increase of 76% on the previous year – and also cleaned gum from 1,580m2 of our city centre streets.

Each year Mitie conduct an audit of all BID area streets, based on a nationally recognised rating system.

In total the team dealt with 326 instances of environmental and They have delivered an exceptional hazardous waste, which includes the disposal and clean-up of drug rapid response service, gum paraphernalia. busting and basement cleaning service across the area, on top of their daily rounds.

Clean Team Audit

There were sharp increases in instances of flyposting, up by 35%, with rapid response call-outs increasing by 69% and basement

The Audit conducted at the end of this reporting period shows a cleanliness score of 96%, a slight increase of 2% compared to last year, and 3% on the year before.

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CLEAN TEAM

Our Clean Team cleared 8 tonnes of on-street rubbish by hand - that’s over 1,400 bags - and we disposed of it all through our own trade waste.

St Andrew Square Garden

Extended Outdoor Seating

Managed by Essential Edinburgh on behalf of the owners, the garden has been open to the public for almost fifteen years and is a busy and vibrant thoroughfare.

This versatile and well-used city centre space also provides a tranquil and reflective haven for workers and visitors to frequent.

Ahead of the city centre reopening in April/May 2021, we began to lobby Edinburgh Council to enable our hospitality businesses to increase their outdoor spaces for tables and chairs into the first carriageway where possible.

To ensure the garden is kept in pristine condition all year round we have planned maintenance and superb landscape gardeners to help maintain and improve the space.

For Christmas 2021 we ensured the garden was safe and attractive with enhanced path and tree lighting.

This enabled many businesses to open and helped them operate with increased outdoor covers - albeit at a reduced indoor capacity.

This was so successful we were able to lobby for a second year of increased outdoor space for many of our hospitality businesses this year.

Waste and Cleansing Industrial Action - August 2022 During the significant disruption caused by the industrial action in August 2022 of the waste team at Edinburgh Council, our Clean Team responded to the needs of our levy-payers and cleared 8 tonnes of on-street rubbish by hand that’s over 1,400 bags - and we disposed of it all through our own trade waste.

Thanks to their heroic efforts, the BID area saw significantly less waste issues such as mountains of rubbish around dustbins, suffered by the rest of the city.

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“To be able to have additional space at the edge of the pavement has been invaluable to us and brought an extra 50 covers and we wouldn’t have had that if it wasn’t for Essential Edinburgh.”

- Karol Rzepkowski, Victor Hugo

For this reporting period 298.51 tonnes of carbon was diverted from landfill - benefitting both individual levy-payers and the environment.

Seasonal Decorations Seasonal decorations and floral displays help to create a warm welcome and attractive environment for trading and working in. They enhance the city centre atmosphere, supporting regular and repeat footfall and encouraging people to linger longer, increasing the spend per head.

To create this ambience yearround we continue to invest in seasonal floral displays in our George Street planters, maintain the trees in Rose Street and ensure St Andrew Square Garden is the jewel in the crown of city centre spaces.

We continue to solely fund the Christmas Light Trees on George Street to ensure a fitting festive display during this crucial trading period.

For the second year running we also installed additional lighting in St Andrew Square Garden to create a festive and beautiful backdrop for shoppers.

The Rose Street canopy lights enable us to continue to have the only part of our capital city with year-round enhanced dressing.

Changeworks Recycling A quarter of all BID businesses benefit from our favourable groupbuying rate with Changeworks

Recycling, and the more businesses that sign up, the lower costs become for everyone.

Their team come into your business to collect your waste too, so no more unsightly bags of refuse on the pavement!

In total they collected 1381.97 tonnes of waste with a recycling rate of 65% with a total of 298.51 tonnes of carbon diverted from landfill - benefitting both individual levy-payers and the environment.

If you have not yet switched, do give them a call, you could save some money and the environment at the same time!

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We are Essential Edinburgh, looking after you and our city centre.

For our city centre to thrive and reach its potential it is of vital importance for our businesses, staff and customers to feel safe and protected.

Protecting

Spend: £62,167 – 8% of Total BID Project Spend

Our partnerships with Police Scotland and Cyrenians, supported by our security initiatives and engagement with businesses, are helping to deliver a safer and more welcoming city centre for everyone.

BID Cop - PC Ehssan Sanii

Security Initiatives

Our partnership with Police Scotland provides an enhanced police presence within the district. PC Ehssan Sanii is an active support for our businesses, providing a single point of contact with law enforcement, readily available to support and advise for a more secure and resilient city centre.

We continue to operate multiple channels to tackle and minimise crime within the BID.

As well as providing a single point of contact for all members, PC Sanii provides vital alerts and security updates from Police Scotland and regularly visits businesses to offer advice, support and training.

Our Check Out and Check In communication systems link over 160 retailers and over 120 accommodation providers with the police and each other.

This joined-up approach continues to deliver real results in reducing retail and hospitality crime in the city centre.

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PC Ehssan Sanii Police Scotland BID Cop

We continue to operate multiple channels to tackle and minimise crime within the BID

Crime Statistics April 2021 - March 2022 Source: Police Scotland

Crime Statistics Total recorded crimes and offences for April 2021 - March 2022 were up 40% compared to last year, but down 13% compared to the fiveyear average. This increase was to be expected due to the return to normality post Covid.

year, but down 15% on the fiveyear average.

Check In

Our accommodation providers, directly linked with Police Scotland, have a central point to alert others to concerns and criminality, helping Serious assault, robbery, vandalism accommodation providers across and common assault, theft by the city to share their information shoplifting and fraud were all up across the city centre network. on the year before. Shoplifting, vandalism and serious assault were We facilitated the distribution down on the five-year average, of 56 circulations to 122 with housebreaking to a business accommodation subscribers in this down both year-on-year and on reporting period. the five-year average.

Total detection rates for crimes and offences were up 19% on last

Check Out We still lead the way with our innovative approach to tackling retail crime.

By collating, coordinating and sharing information with Police Scotland from over 160 signed-up retailers, we are helping to make our BID an unappealing target for shoplifters.

Between 1st April 2021 and 31st March 2022 we shared data of 314 incidents with our partners.

That is almost double the number of circulations in the previous reporting period, but 11% less than in 2019.

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Please note: Recorded crime is all crime reported to Police. Detected crime is the number of crimes solved.

The increase in detected and recorded crime is to be expected following the end of COVID restrictions last year.

Crime figures reported by Police Scotland are for the reporting year 1st April 2021 to 31st March 2022 and are for the Edinburgh City Centre area.

The 5 year average does not include current year data.

Robbery includes assault with intent to rob.

1

Recorded Crime

Detected Crime

Total crimes and offences 40% on previous year 13% on 5-year average

Total crimes and offences 19% on previous year 15% on 5-year average

Serious Assault 218% on previous year 13% on 5 year average

Serious Assault 132% on previous year 14% on 5 year average

Housebreaking to a business 58% on previous year 65% on 5 year average

Housebreaking to a business 0% on previous year 17% on 5 year average

Robbery1 34% on previous year 9% on 5 year average

Robbery1 9% on previous year 10% on 5 year average

Vandalism 16% on previous year 8% on 5 year average

Vandalism 15% on previous year 13% on 5 year average

Common assault 98% on previous year 1% on 5 year average

Common assault 88% on previous year 0% on 5 year average

Theft by shoplifting 39% on previous year 38% on 5 year average

Theft by shoplifting 2% on previous year 56% on 5 year average

Fraud 69% on previous year 13% on 5 year average

Fraud 18% on previous year 42% on 5 year average

We’re proud to partner with Cyrenians, supporting their amazing work caring for the homeless community in our city.

Cyrenians Navigator Project We continue to fund Outreach Workers as part of the Navigator Project run by Cyrenians. They work on a one-to-one basis with rough sleepers on the city centre streets. They provide support by developing individual relationships, responding to the person’s specific priorities and supporting them to address these.

In this reporting period the Navigator Project had approx.

300 interactions supporting 80 individuals. They also supported 34 people to access temporary accommodation (incl. Bethany Welcome Centre), supported 2 people to gain permanent accommodation and 6 people

to maintain their permanent accommodation.

None of the people helped in this fashion have returned to homelessness/rough sleeping in the past year.

It should be noted that Edinburgh faces significant resource issues.

There were 690 occasions last year that Scottish local authorities could not fulfil their legal duty to accommodate people, with 670 occurring in Edinburgh.

Nick Harrold Navigator Outreach Worker, Cyrenians

such as food and drink. Cyrenians are able to refer individuals to a specialist migrant workers service, and in one case this year were able to facilitate a vulnerable young woman - a potential victim of trafficking and sexual exploitation to gain access to suitable support.

During the past year the team have started to meet people engaged in on-street activity who are in employment, but struggling financially. Whilst in low quantity, it is anticipated numbers will There continues to be a significant rise as societal factors such as fuel poverty and cost of living number of non-UK nationals increases bite. It is already a engaged in street activity in the factor in the increased number of city centre. The majority of these individuals are not eligible for state people begging who are already accommodated. assistance, but limited to basics ESSENTIAL EDINBURGH Annual Review April 2021 to March 2022 | 30

How can you help?

• If you think someone is in immediate danger on the street, call Police Scotland on 999 or 101 • If you see someone sleeping rough who you think needs support, call Cyrenians on 0131 475 2503 • If you or someone you know is at immediate risk of homelessness, call 0800 032 5968 Want to support Cyrenians wider work? Visit www.cyrenians.scot to find out how.

We amplify your voice, ensuring that your views are heard when key decisions that impact your business or the city centre are made.

Engaging

We are Essential Edinburgh, looking after you and our city centre.

Spend: £30,000 - 4% of Total BID Project Budget

Transforming the City Centre

We have been working extensively behind the scenes to support Throughout the year Essential any potential changes of use or Edinburgh have worked on redevelopment of space in the city behalf of levy payers to engage centre, and will continue working with many exciting projects and closely with developers to ensure developments in the city. The St support to levy payers during the James Quarter and Johnnie Walker major construction work underway Princes Street opened during this in the city centre. reporting period, enriching the quality offering of the city centre.

We support the many developers investing in our city. We help More exciting developments are to co-ordinate the sharing of planned for Princes Street and information, sit on city wide the city centre, with the former groups, comment on planning Jenners, Royal Overseas League, applications and traffic orders and Top Shop and Debenhams liaise with Council officials and redevelopments progressing, and other organisations, representing the new Dunard Centre due to the interests of our businesses at begin development work soon.

every opportunity.

St Andrew Square Tour Buses We have been pushing Edinburgh Council and bus operators hard to remove the tour buses from around St Andrew Square. The quantity of waiting buses, idling engines, noise and pavement congestion has created significant issues for businesses operating on the square.

Although we received assurance that a solution had been found in May, this still has not been realised.

We will continue to apply pressure until a suitable alternative solution is presented.

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©Dunard Centre

If you are recruiting, or want training for your staff, please get in touch with the FUSE team - it is free for levy-payers.

City Centre Monitoring Project

Wayfinding

FUSE

We monitor the health of the city centre with retail and hospitality sales and footfall. These indicators were instrumental in securing Covid recovery funding and for lobbying both local and national government.

In this reporting year the new citywide wayfinding totem project began implementation, with eight Essential Edinburgh funded totems.

FUSE was set up to support citywide recruitment and training. It delivers high quality recruitment and training for retail, leisure and hospitality sectors. Through our investment we can offer our levypayers training opportunities for all their staff, and support their recruitment needs at no cost.

These key indicators are reported on our ‘stats dashboard’ on the Essential Edinburgh website, and within our Friday email updates.

If you would like to participate in either of our retail or hospitality sales monitors, to enrich the data we gather, please get in touch with us. We only ask for year on year percentages, and all data provided is held in strict confidence.

New totems were installed outside St Andrew Square Garden and at the west end of Princes Street, with the remaining six totems being installed during this year. We are delighted to finally have this much needed directional signage within the area.

Our Rose Street directories, at the ends of each block, remain the only physical business directory in the city.

Our partnership with FUSE is already supporting employment opportunities and recruitment for levy-payers within the BID area, they have advertised 660 vacancies for 207 employers in St James Quarter and 112 employers in the wider BID area.

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We are Essential Edinburgh, looking after you and our city centre.

We lobbied local and national government, representing your views and needs.

Engaging in Conversation We continue to play an important role on many city-wide working groups supporting and influencing the future of our city centre.

These include the Economic Advisory Forum with Edinburgh Council, Edinburgh Business Resilience Group with the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, Strategic Implementation Group for Tourism, the Forever Edinburgh City Marketing Steering Group, as well as representing at Board level with ETAG, Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, and Association of International Retail (AIR).

We lobbied hard and successfully alongside AIR and the New West End BID company for the reintroduction of international tax-free shopping, which was unfortunately then reversed by a UK government U-turn in October 2022.

We welcomed Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister, in February to discuss the issues facing city centres and our business community.

We have also lobbied local and national government, representing your views and needs, including the need of more support for the city centre post-covid. Additional funds were made available to specifically support footfall driving activities for local businesses.

We continue to chair the partnership group for St Andrew Square to discuss the key issues needed to maintain it as a high-quality open space in the city centre.

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We are Essential Edinburgh, looking after you and our city centre.

The renewal ballot begins on 9th February, with voting closing on 23rd March 2023.

Your Vote Is Essential!

Renewal Ballot

consultation closed on 30th September 2022. Your feedback has been incorporated into the final business plan, which will be published in January 2023.

You will be aware that Essential Edinburgh operates on a five-year term, holding a renewal ballot at the end of each term. The next renewal ballot begins on 9th None of the projects, services or February 2023, with voting closing initiatives delivered by Essential on 23rd March 2023.

Edinburgh will continue in the event of a no vote. But with a During this reporting period positive renewal ballot result, we we asked you to tell us YOUR will deliver the new business plan priorities for 2023 – 2028. Using and continue to support our levythese results we produced a draft paying businesses for another business plan document (featured five-year term. in part on page 39), which has been out for consultation since More information about the March 2022. renewal ballot can be found on our dedicated website: Thank you to every business that essentialedinburghrenewal.co.uk has provided us with comments

2023 BALLOT TIMELINE:

• • • • • •

31st January: Business Plan posted 9th February: Ballot papers delivered & voting opens 13th March: Last day to appoint a proxy 16th March: First day replacements for LOST ballot papers can be requested 23rd March at 5pm: Ballot closes 27th March: Results announced

and suggestions before the

ESSENTIAL EDINBURGH Annual Review April 2021 to March 2022 | 38

Accounts 1st April 2021 to 31st March 2022

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We are Essential Edinburgh, looking after you and our city centre.

Budget 1st April 2022 to 31st March 2023

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We are Essential Edinburgh, looking after you and our city centre.

Get in touch: Clean Team Rapid Response: 07919 560 290 Marketing Team: marketing@essentialedinburgh.co.uk Changeworks: wwylie@changeworksrecycling.co.uk

@EssentialEdin

Cyrenians: www.cyrenians.scot FUSE: hello@edinburghfuse.com

@EdinCityCentre

113 (1f1) Rose Street Edinburgh EH2 3DT | T: 0131 220 8580 | info@essentialedinburgh.co.uk

www.EssentialEdinburgh.co.uk | www.EssentialEdinburghRenewal.co.uk | www.EdinburghCityCentre.co.uk ©ESSENTIAL EDINBURGH 2022 | The reproductionESSENTIAL or publication of any partAnnual of this document is strictly EDINBURGH Review April 2021 toprohibited.

March 2022 | 44