2 minute read
Engaging
Engaging Spend: £60,615 - 8% of Total BID Project Budget
We amplify your voice, ensuring that your views are heard when key decisions that impact your business or the city centre are made.
Transforming the City Centre Throughout the year Essential Edinburgh has worked on behalf of levy-payers to engage with many exciting projects and developments in the city. These include the George Street redesign project, the Transient Visitor Levy, the Quaich Project, the City Centre Transformation Project and major transport initiatives and new developments throughout the BID area.
BID area development We support the many developers investing in our city. We help to co-ordinate the sharing of information, sit on city wide groups, comment on planning applications and traffic orders and liaise with Council officials and other organisations.
With complex developments like the St James Quarter, Johnnie Walker Experience, 64 and 111 Princes Street, Jenners, Gleneagles Hotel, The Hub on Rose Street and office developments on George Street, we represent the interests of our businesses at every opportunity. FUSE In preparation for the opening of the St James Quarter the Edinburgh Training Academy, FUSE, was set up last year to support citywide recruitment and training.
FUSE is delivering high quality recruitment and training for retail, leisure and hospitality sectors, offering our levy-payers high quality training opportunities for all their staff and supporting their recruitment needs at no cost.
If you are recruiting or want training for your staff, please get in touch with the FUSE team.
We are Essential Edinburgh, looking after you and our city centre.
City Centre Monitoring Project This was the final year of our collaboration with LDC and University College London as part of the Smart Street Sensor Project. From April 2020 the new data provider is Intechnology, the company that delivers Edinburgh’s free WiFi service.
Intechnology provide footfall information for the BID area which includes demographic data to provide more detailed footfall patterns across the city centre. Alongside our retail and hospitality sales monitor, these vital metrics enable us to monitor the vitality of the city centre each year. Since July 2019 these key indicators are reported on our ‘stats dashboard’ on the Essential Edinburgh website, and continue to be printed annually in our Essential Trends publication.
Cycling Working closely with SPOKES and the Council we ensure appropriate cycle lane provision during both Christmas and Summer festivals. Wayfinding We are working collaboratively with Edinburgh Council and Transport for Edinburgh to assist with the implementation of a new wayfinding system for Edinburgh city centre and have been integral to the solution being discussed. The first evidence of this was our production of new wayfinding maps on our Rose Street directories, using the new city-wide design.
Rose Street We continued to work with Council staff and contractors to facilitate effective communication with local businesses during the replacement works on Rose Street. Unfortunately due to lockdown and social distancing measures completion of the resurfacing has been delayed.
Business Training and Master Classes This year we held a Marketing Masterclass “Dissect Your KPIs” led by performance marketing agency DAC, who kindly shared their expertise and knowledge for free with their fellow levy-paying businesses.
