The New Town & Broughton Community Council has identified aspects of continued and worsening deficiency in how Edinburgh’s World Heritage Site is managed.
The findings appeared in NTBCC’s detailed response to a consultation on the next 5-year WHS management plan conducted by the Council, Historic Environment Scotland and Edinburgh World Heritage.
NTBCC noted continued deficiencies in the following predetermined categories:
- Moving around*
- Care and maintenance of buildings and streets
- Natural space*
- Control and guidance (robust application of the guidelines protecting the WHS’s Outstanding Universal Value)
- Housing*
- Visitor management
- Influence and sense of control (the extent to which community councils and residents feel able to influence decisions).*
Some areas where NTBCC identified ‘significant decreases’ in standards since 2016 are asterisked above. The rest were:
- Identity and belonging
- Feeling safe
- Liveability.
The consultation used the Scottish Govt’s Place Standards Tool to gather views. NTBCC doubts if the PST ‘covers all the necessary aspects to achieve continued and necessary improvements to manage the WHS’ but concedes that ‘it is a useful starter in the process’.
