Annual Review
2017/18
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We believe in working collaboratively to create, develop and promote a better and more prosperous Edinburgh City Centre. Through a varied and innovative range of projects we will endeavour to make our city centre safe, green, vibrant and commercially strong.
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Contents 04 Board & Team 06 Introduction 08 Renewal Ballot 11 Area Promotion 17 Clean & Attractive 19 Safe & Secure 22 Facilitation & Accessibility 25 Accounts
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A committed team working hard for you. Board & Team Directors
Barry Blamire – John Lewis & Partners Craig Thomson – Boots (Appointed 13 February 2018)
David Stewart – Aberdeen Standard Investments Denzil Skinner – Chair of Essential Edinburgh Derek Brownlee – The Royal Bank of Scotland Jennifer Mcpartlin – Marks and Spencer John Donnelly – Marketing Edinburgh Joshua Miller – Charlie Miller Louise Masson – Harvey Nichols Martin Clarke – Edinburgh Woollen Mill Rochelle Burgess – Edinburgh St James & Multrees Walk Roddy Smith – Essential Edinburgh CEO David Johnston – Montpeliers Gavin Barrie – City of Edinburgh Council (resigned February 2018)
Gordon Dingwall – Boots (Resigned 14 November 2017)
Lin Cherrington – Creative Cookware Marcello Ventisei – The Principal Charlotte Square (Resigned 1 December 2017)
Staff
Cassandra Ritchie, Finance & BID Liaison Executive Emily Johnston, Senior Manager Marketing & Communications Gillian James, Marketing and Communications Executive Grant Roberts, Operations / Farmers’ Market Manager Grant Stewart, Senior Manager Projects Mark Farvis, Digital Media Manager Roddy Smith, Chief Executive Shona Davidson, Head of Corporate Services
Clean Team
Austen Ward Ben Redeer Darren Korfanty Dylan Clark James Reilly Tomasz Grabski
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The Cyrenians partnership with Essential Edinburgh has already had a huge impact on the lives of some of our most excluded citizens. It is a real privilege to be in partnership with a business organisation who take such a positive and compassionate, citizen focused approach to a complex and very human issue. Ewan Aitken, Cyrenians
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Partnerships are essential to everything that we do. Introduction Welcome to the annual review, covering the fifth and final year of our second term. The year had two main objectives: continuing to offer real value to our levy payers by delivering strongly against our agreed business plan whilst embarking on the renewal process to ensure our work could continue into a vital third term. This digital document shows clearly the breadth and scope of the work and the results that were achieved over the course of the year. From the animation of the West end of George Street in August and December, through to our key events such as the Edinburgh Farmers’ Market, Life and Style and Film Fest in the City, we continued to support events to bring footfall in to and around the area. Our partnership with Police Scotland has strengthened again with our own dedicated BID area officer, PC Leo Baker, making a real impact and ensuring a far more visible and
proactive police presence in the BID area. We have also been working closely with our key third sector partners, The Cyrenians, to support their brilliant work with the homeless community in the city centre. Our fantastic Clean Team and partnership with Changeworks Recycling are making a continued impact to the cleanliness of the city centre, while we continue our efforts to represent members’ interest across a wide range of city centre issues. It has been a busy year and we hope you look forward to reading about our progress. In April and May all our levy payers were given the opportunity to vote on our new five year business plan. This was the culmination of an eighteen-month process of consultation both individually and collectively with you all, and the production of both draft and final plans. The process gave us all a great opportunity to critically review what we had delivered to date and to put forward proposals that would address the key
issues you felt should have greatest focus going forward. We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who took the time to engage with us and cast their democratic vote. Almost 70% of our levy payers voted with 91% voting YES — absolutely amazing results and a pleasing affirmation of both the work we delivered and our plans for the next five years. The hard work for our third term starts now. Finally we would like to offer our sincere thanks to the Board of Essential Edinburgh and to our staff for all their hard work during this busiest of years.
Roddy Smith, CEO Denzil Skinner, Chair
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Our city centre is evolving. Essential Edinburgh is doing likewise. With new large-scale developments, well documented challenges in retail and footfall, as well as the need to address social and security issues, our new plan has been formed with each of these taken into account.
91% yes Renewal Ballot Our renewal ballot process gave the staff and Board of the organisation an excellent opportunity to analyse what we had delivered in the past two terms and adapt and change to reflect the key issues that are affecting the city now and in the next five years. With large and small scale consultation exercises, both our draft plan and our final
business plan were scrutinised and assessed in depth. The final plan was one which evolved from term two, with an increased emphasis on Promoting Edinburgh’s city centre to people living in the Edinburgh, Lothians, Fife and the Borders; supporting Enhanced cleaning services, Protecting workers, visitors and locals, and Engaging with partners to address complex issues such as homelessness. Essential Edinburgh staff worked exceptionally hard to secure a large turnout of voters, ensuring your voice was heard, and with almost 70% casting their democratic vote and an amazing 91% voting yes, a strong mandate for the third term was achieved. We look forward to delivering this plan with our many partners and levy payers over the course of the next five years.
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Consultations, discussions, plan & delivery
Business plan
Draft business plan
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We are Essential Edinburgh, looking after your City Centre. Farmers’ Market - that’s us.
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For every £1 spent on events we generated £24 of spend in the city centre. Area Promotion Total spend – £506,753 Promoting the city centre remains a key priority; we have invested significantly with over 56% of the total Projects budget allocated to creating activity to vitalise the BID and draw in repeat footfall.
Footfall
In May 2017 we changed our footfall monitoring provider and now have eighteen new counters in place across the BID. Consequently no comparable year-on-year figures are available for this reporting year. It is interesting to note however that for the first time since we started recording footfall December was the busiest month of the year in the BID, overtaking August by 6%.
Sales Monitors
It has been a challenging year for retailers with the Sales Monitor, collected by STR on our behalf, showing a decrease of 0.6% compared to the same period last year. The opposite is the case for hospitality businesses in Edinburgh, showing a year-on-year increase of 4.4%.
Essential Edinburgh Events
The four events produced by Essential Edinburgh created a total economic value of almost £5.3 million; for every £1 spent we generated £24 of spend in the city centre.
Edinburgh Farmers’ Market
Edinburgh Farmers’ Market continues to be a huge footfall draw into the city centre every Saturday for both locals and tourists. This market continues to be the only true “Farmers’ market” in Edinburgh, in that our stallholders are all local producers who grow, rear, bake, pickle or brew their own products, ensuring traceability and an unrivalled customer experience.
The average footfall through the market exceeds 360,000 annually, with over 55% going on to shop, eat or drink in the city centre. Their average spend is just over £25, bringing an estimated annual economic value to the city centre of almost £5 million.
Film Fest in the City
Our hugely successful outdoor cinema in St Andrew Square Garden continues to be a highlight; working in partnership with Edinburgh International Film Festival and Unique Events to deliver three days of free films. Over 100 BID businesses participated with free adverts on the giant outdoor screen. Over 10,000 attendees enjoyed a superb array of films over the three days; 47% came into Edinburgh especially for Film Fest in the City. 67% of attendees went on to shop, eat or drink in the BID spending on average just over £38, delivering an economic value of almost £255,000.
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We are Essential Edinburgh, looking after your City Centre. The sign of a great time - that’s us.
£1m spend over 5 years. Sustainable, evolving marketing campaign.
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Film Fest in the City, a prime example of an impactful partnership Area Promotion continued Edinburgh Restaurant Festival – Moveable Feast & Secret Dining Experience
The sell-out Secret Dining Experience was introduced to the festival this year, with an ultimate afternoon tea held in the sumptuous surroundings of the Jenners Boardroom. Following the huge success of this sell-out event last year, our five-courses in five restaurants Moveable Feast returned with triple the number of opportunities to participate. With an approval rating of almost 4.4 out of 5 and 93% of ticket holders definitely visiting the participating restaurants again, it was another resounding success: “I loved trying new restaurants and eating food I might not have chosen for myself. Wonderful evening, we’ll certainly be going back to all the restaurants again!” Moveable Feast attendee.
Life & Style 2017 & 2018
Two Life & Style events took place within this financial year. An evolution from Spa in the
City and Edinburgh Fashion Week, this event crossed the boundaries between fashion, beauty, interior design and wellbeing. Over 80% of Life & Style attendees also visited shops, restaurants or bars in Edinburgh, spending on average just under £50.
George Street Festival
Following the success of “George Street West Fest” in 2016 we partnered with the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2017 to animate the most westerly block of George Street. We enabled our hospitality businesses to extend their outdoor seating and created an east to west pull to encourage footfall across the BID.
Communicating with you
We work hard as a team to keep you all in the loop; to inform, update and share important and interesting information. We use all available platforms to keep the flow of information running; weekly E-Updates, road closure and weekly footfall emails, quarterly printed newsletters and daily tweets.
Marketing Campaign planning
Following extensive consultation prior to the creation of the Business Plan 2018-2023 it was clear that a very high priority for the next five years (term 3 of the BID) was the creation of a sustainable, evolving marketing campaign to run for up to five years. To enable the campaign to begin at the start of our eleventh year, considerable planning and creative development had to begin during this reporting year. The new BID-centred marketing campaign launched on 8th October 2018 using bus, tram, train, kiosk, radio and on-street activity to encourage regular city centre visits from locals.
Mi-Edinburgh
This digital channel has enabled us to be very consumer-centred with reviews, spotlight campaigns, business profiles and competitions. Over the past twelve months Mi-Edinburgh followers and users have increased by 19.5%, with an annual reach of 1.2 million.
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Mi-Edinburgh annual reach of 1.2m. Area Promotion continued China Ready – Weibo & WeChat
Chinese visitors, Edinburgh’s fastest growing and highest spending visitor group, are set to more than double in number by 2020. The official Edinburgh Weibo and WeChat channels are valuable assets for local businesses with 62,895 combined followers and 83.3 million impressions to June 2018. Through collaboration with the China Ready group and Edinburgh Tourism Action Group (ETAG) we are able to offer a regular platform for our levy payers to engage with this valuable audience.
Bloom
Launching the Edinburgh International Festival in 2017 — and celebrating its 70th anniversary, Bloom was a spectacular projection display around St Andrew Square that brought tens of thousands of visitors to our area.
Red, Red Rose Street
In 2018 this imaginative celebration of Rabbie Burns returned to the BID. This innovative partnership event produced by Unique Events, saw a jam-packed programme including traditional Burns Night celebrations
and ceilidhs mixed with music, spoken word, comedy, busking, trails and theatre, all with a central focus on Rose Street.
Light Night in George Street
The annual light night extravaganza on George Street saw around 15,000 people celebrate the switching on of the BID-funded Christmas lighting in the city centre and the official start of Edinburgh’s Christmas festivities.
Winter Festival in the BID
The Edinburgh’s Christmas celebration, supported by Essential Edinburgh, is recognised throughout the world as making Scotland’s Capital the place to be for the festive season; driving footfall, trade and opportunities for our retail and hospitality sectors in particular at this vital trading time. Alongside the return of the ice rink in St Andrew Square Garden, a new attraction for the west end of George Street was created, The Ice Adventure – a journey through frozen Scotland, encouraging a pull-through of visitors from east to west. ESSENTIAL EDINBURGH Annual Review 2017 - 18 | 15
We are Essential Edinburgh, looking after your City Centre. Clean team - that’s us.
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Clean Team responded to 450 rapid response call outs within half an hour. Clean & Attractive Total spend – £196,397 Our continued investment in enhancing the BID area ensures an attractive destination for all city centre users. Over 79% of respondents to the Edinburgh Visitor Survey, conducted by STR, agreed that the BID area is cleaner than the rest of the city and 85% found it more welcoming. Clean Team Unsung heroes of the BID area, our Clean Team provide an additional cleansing service above and beyond the statutory responsibility of the Council. They tackle unsightly environmental waste, hazardous items such as used needles, keep St Andrew Square Garden litter free and offer a fantastic Rapid Response service, which saw almost 450 call-outs during this reporting year. The team removed gum from 14,540m2 of pavements, tackled an increase in flyposting of 18%, removed 534 items of environmental and hazardous waste including drugs paraphernalia and removed over 17,500 bags of litter - recycling five times more refuse than in the last reporting year.
Seasonal decorations A visually enticing and welcoming city centre is vitally important to a visitor’s first impression and for repeat local footfall. To help create this ambience year-round we have invested in floral displays across the BID area and vibrant bunting on Rose Street. To ensure a fitting festive display at this crucial trading period we were also the sole funder of the Christmas lights in the city centre. Changeworks Recycling Our award-winning partnership with Changeworks Recycling continues to benefit both individual BID businesses and the environment with 696.62 tonnes of CO2 diverted from landfill.
St Andrew Square Garden This year celebrates the tenth anniversary of opening St Andrew Square Garden to the public. In that time around 40 million locals and visitors have enjoyed this unique space in the heart of the city centre. The Garden is a tranquil and reflective place, as well as a busy thoroughfare. To soften the impact of the heavy footfall within the Garden we have continued to invest in the upkeep and upgrading of this key green space.
They have collected a total of 1,428 tonnes of waste with a recycling rate of 64%. Almost a third of all BID businesses utilise the favourable BID rate with Changeworks Recycling — and the more businesses that sign up, the lower their rates become. So if you have not yet switched, give them a call, save some money and the environment at the same time! ESSENTIAL EDINBURGH Annual Review 2017 - 18 | 17
We are Essential Edinburgh, looking after your City Centre. Check Out - That’s us.
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Introducing our very own BID cop... Safe & Secure
Total spend – £61,160
Protecting businesses, customers and staff is of the utmost importance for a thriving city centre. The success of our innovative partnerships can be seen in the results from the Edinburgh Visitor Survey, conducted by STR, with 90% of respondents feeling safer in the BID than elsewhere in the city. BID Cop From August 2017 Essential Edinburgh and Police Scotland trialled a new collaboration to support businesses within the BID. Our very own BID Cop — PC Leo Baker — liaises with business representatives across our area to establish the issues that affect them and plan appropriate responses. In this reporting year PC Baker has visited 146 organisations offering advice, support and training for staff to help make the city centre more resilient to crime. He also acted as a liaison with partners including homeless charities, the City of
Edinburgh Council and the Home Office in order to best assist persons rough sleeping and street begging within the BID area to improve their life situations.
“Having Leo popping in was great! He was incredibly helpful establishing a working relationship when we had a persistent issue with a rough sleeper outside our rear fire escape. Leo kept us up to date at every step, and he was ultimately able to assist with getting the rough sleeper housed.”
Security Initiatives We continue to operate multiple channels to tackle and minimise crime within the BID: funding two CCTV cameras; providing Transport Marshals for the evening economy; co-ordinating Check Out for retailers, Check In for hoteliers, Gold Watch for jewellers and Pub Watch for hospitality businesses. These initiatives all play an important role in making our city centre an unattractive location for crime. Check Out continues to lead the way with its innovative approach to tackling retail crime. Coordinated sharing of information between signed-up retailers and Police Scotland helps to make our BID an unappealing option for shoplifting. The success of Check Out is due to partnership working between over 150 businesses, helping to circulate 374 incidents in this reporting year.
Callum Macdonald, Manager, Scribbler Princes Street.
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Safe & Secure Crime statistics
Recorded Crime
Detected Crime
Serious Assault
Serious Assault
Down
Down
Up
-14.3% on last year 3.3% on 5 year average
Down
-21.7% on last year -6.0% on 5 year average
Housebreaking to a business
Housebreaking to a business
Down
-11.7% on last year
Up
Down
-0.7% on 5 year average
Down
5.7% on last year -11.7% on 5 year average
Robbery
Robbery
Up
Up
Up
40.0% on last year 12.9% on 5 year average
Up
40.7% on last year 8.6% on 5 year average
Vandalism
Vandalism
Up
Down -24.1% on 5 year average
Down
4.4% on last year -0.2% on 5 year average
Down -20.5% on 5 year average
Crime statistics from Police Scotland, April 2017-March 2018 for Edinburgh City Centre. ESSENTIAL EDINBURGH Annual Review 2017 - 18 | 20
We are Essential Edinburgh, looking after your City Centre. City Centre Monitoring - that’s us.
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George Street is being redesigned, we are all part of it. Facilitation & Accessibility Total spend – £140,346 Over the past ten years we have influenced and engaged on your behalf, building strong relationships that ensure we are heard as the voice of our levy-paying businesses. We have a strong collective voice and are always there to represent your views when key decisions that impact our city centre are made.
George Street Redesign Project Driving forward the consultation and proposals for the redesign of George Street we continue to represent members on this important project group. The redesign accompanies several other projects including the City Centre Transformation, the Clean Air Initiative, the East to West Cycle Route and an overall aim to reduce traffic in the city centre. A consultation of this size and scale is not a quick processes but we expect to see plans put forward in early 2019. The Cyrenians Our partnership with The Cyrenians continues to grow as we support their amazing work caring for the homeless community in our city. By publicising and supporting their ‘Because Life Happens’ campaign we hope to raise awareness with our levy papers and partners, as well as raise additional funds to help the crucial work their staff undertake throughout the city. Homelessness is a key issue, and through the efforts of The Cyrenians and other third sector partners a real difference is being made to the lives of people in our community.
BID area development We have supported ongoing development and investment in our city centre by coordinating information sharing between key organisations, sitting on city-wide groups, commenting on planning applications and traffic orders and liaising with Council officials. Given the complexity of developments such as Edinburgh St James, the former BHS site, The Registers, Gleneagles Hotel, Malmaison, The Hub on Rose Street and offices on George Street, representing the interests of our businesses has never been more important. City Centre Monitoring Project We have joined forces with the Smart Street Sensor Project (a collaboration between LDC and University College London) to secure even more detailed footfall information for our area, tripling the number of counters within the BID for a fraction of the normal cost. Alongside our retail and hospitality sales monitoring these vital metrics enable us to understand the health of the city centre on a monthly basis and report findings through our Essential Trends publication. ESSENTIAL EDINBURGH Annual Review 2017 - 18 | 22
Over 200 bikes have been marked and added to the national database, protecting your property. Facilitation & Accessibility continued Rose Street The Council’s plans to replace the public realm within the Frederick to Hanover Street block have unfortunately been delayed but are planned for the next financial year. We will continue to work closely with Council officers to ensure minimal disruption arises from this. We have also expressed concern to Council officials regarding the ongoing disrepair in certain other areas of the street, as well as reporting difficulties with the management of the one-way road system.
Bike Marking Initiative During this year we have worked with Police Scotland to help BID area bike users keep their cycles safe by marking them with unique reference numbers and adding them to a national register. We have also been able to provide Kryptonite bike locks to help protect bicycles against theft. This has been a hugely popular operation and has continued into the new BID term.
Our welcoming signage at the entrances to Rose Street continue to be updated yearly and remain the only pedestrian way-finding in the BID area.
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Essential Edinburgh plays an active role in the city centre and our many programmes, projects, partnerships and initiatives have become part of the fabric of doing business in the heart of Scotland’s capital city.
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Accounts 1st July 2017 to 30th June 2018
Income
Expenditure
BID Levy £1,050,783 Voluntary Contributions £45,091 St Andrew Square £94,868 Garden Income Project Income £8,533 Events Income £69,563 Edinburgh Farmers’ £91,571 Market Income
Operating Costs Project Costs St Andrew Square Garden Costs Edinburgh Farmers’ Market Costs
TOTAL Interest
£1,360,409
TOTAL Surplus (Incl Interest)
Project Costs £246,726 £904,656 £133,580 £86,739
£1,371,701 -£11,185
£106
Area Promotion Accessibility Safe & Secure Clean & Attractive Facilitation and Renewal Ballot Levy Collection by CEC Contingency
TOTAL
Operating Cost £506,753 £6,984 £61,160 £196,397 £125,362 £8,000 £0
£904,656
Salaries £136,667 Travel & Subsistence £764 Recruitment £98 Training £1,589 Subscriptions £734 Hospitality £2,541 Print, Postage & Stationary £5,320 Insurance £13,054 Repairs & Maintenance £3,014 Telephones £4,088 Sundry £3,226 Legal & Professional £13,685 IT Costs £5,967 Bank Charges £982 Depreciation £1,870 Rent £23,768 Rates £9,156 Heat & Light £5,203 Office dilapidations/move £15,000 TOTAL £246,726 M.A.R.K 18%
M.A.R.K - ratio of administrative expenses to total income. Industry standard 20% ESSENTIAL EDINBURGH Annual Review 2017 - 18 | 25
Budget 1st July 2018 to 30th June 2019
Income
Expenditure
BID Levy £1,036,948 Voluntary Contributions £40,000 St Andrew Square £54,600 Garden Income Project Income £8,500 Events Income £20,000 Edinburgh Farmers’ £96,100 Market Income
Operating Costs Project Costs St Andrew Square Garden Costs Edinburgh Farmers’ Market Costs
TOTAL Interest
£1,256,148
TOTAL
Project Costs £263,712 £827,657 £72,000 £90,000
£1,253,369
Planned deficit (Incl Interest) £2,779
£0
Operating Cost
Promoting Protecting Enhancing Engaging Levy Collection by CEC Contingency
£445,167 £64,500 £245,000 £10,000 £25,000 £37,990
TOTAL
£827,657
Salaries £140,420 Travel & Subsistence £2,400 Recruitment £0 Training £1,500 Subscriptions £1,800 Hospitality £2,400 Print, Postage & Stationary £6,300 Insurance £13,800 Repairs & Maintenance £7,000 Telephones £4,800 Sundry £4,800 Legal & Professional £23,174 IT Costs £12,000 Bank Charges £1,345 Depreciation £1,440 Rent £19,833 Rates £10,200 Heat & Light £4,800 Office dilapidations/move £5,700
TOTAL M.A.R.K
£263,712 21%
M.A.R.K - ratio of administrative expenses to total income. Industry standard 20% ESSENTIAL EDINBURGH Annual Review 2017 - 18 | 26
New term, new brand and new office! We are moving on 15th November to 113 Rose Street, Edinburgh, EH2 3DT. Tel: +44 (0) 131 220 8580 www.essentialedinburgh.co.uk info@essentialedinburgh.co.uk design prettybright.co.uk