Ex-Edinburgh Council leader Donald Anderson tells Herald columnist John McLellan that Edinburgh’s success was hard won and can’t be taken for granted as competition from English cities intensifies.

Holding a referendum doesn’t have to be divisive, if you know the outcome in advance. Devolution was a slam dunk in 1997 – the only doubt was over strength of support for tax raising powers – and so too could David Cameron relax after calling the voting reform poll in 2011.

Maybe that’s one reason he fooled himself that the 2014 Scottish Independence referendum would be a breeze, and then was even more foolish to think he could pull off the same stunt over EU membership in 2016.

But it takes a special kind of bravery to ask voters a yes-no question when the birds in the trees know you’re on a loser, but that’s what Edinburgh Council did in 2005 when residents were asked to approve a congestion charge scheme which, among many anomalies, would have forced Juniper Green and Currie folk to stump up if they drove across the City Bypass.

The late Sir Tom Farmer famously asked why his wife should pay just for driving him home to Barnton from the airport. We lived in Liberton at the time and would have been stung just nipping to the supermarket at Straiton or the vet in Loanhead. Most people, apart from public transport zealots, had their own reasons for objecting, and I still wonder what I was doing when, as editor of the Edinburgh Evening News, I gave the scheme  conditional approval at the last minute.

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The decision hinged on a desperate deputation by council leader Donald Anderson and transport convener Andrew Burns, who promised to scrap the scheme if it wasn’t working after a six month trial and such is the power of the press the plan was overwhelmingly rejected by three to one.  

The repercussions are still being felt today, because the revenue was to fund construction of the tram line to the Royal Infirmary, a plan the council is still promoting, but with as much likelihood of it happening as 25 years ago. There are plenty of councillors who still fancy a congestion charge, but knowing what we know now about the cost of tram construction, the fee today would be the equivalent of a small mortgage.

Donald Anderson stood down from the council two years later to pursue a successful career as a planning consultant, and with a close eye on political movement as well as the markets, he’s now the go-to man for advice on getting anything built in Edinburgh.  His time in charge at the City Chambers coincided with the city’s boom in the years before Fred Goodwin crashed the economy, but every bit the Blairite he was keen that Edinburgh should get a slice of whatever action was going and one of the results was Multrees Walk and Harvey Nicks.

But his legacy was also the tram. Line One from Leith to the airport was not dependent on congestion charge revenue and although he was gone when the project spiralled into ruinous chaos, he identified the management problems and perhaps that’s why he remains evangelical about the system’s expansion.  

We’re still in contact and after last week’s article on Edinburgh’s development plan he took me to task for underplaying how hard it had been to turn Edinburgh from a complacent backwater in the 1980s into an expanding and attractive capital city able to recover from the banking crash which did so much to damage its reputation for financial probity and stability.

“Edinburgh’s success isn’t just down to historical factors,” he said.  “In the 80s it was run-down, even backward looking, more like a town than a capital, but policies in the 80s and 90s helped transform it and the city region.  Motorola employed 4,000 people at one point in Bathgate, thanks in part to government and council investment, and the Bathgate railway made a huge difference too.

“Edinburgh has benefited from its transformation into a year-round tourism destination, which didn’t just happen, and even table staff can earn good money, upwards of £30k a year.

“The more I see figures on trams, the smarter an investment that looks. That’s not all down to the council, but it more than played its part. It wasn’t perfect, and it certainly isn’t now, but it did a lot.

“I’m amazed at how well financial services held up post-crash and tourism and the trams made a significant difference in attracting huge investment like the St James Quarter. Overtaking Glasgow as Scotland’s premier retail centre certainly wasn’t by chance.”

Plenty people would challenge the value the tram network has brought for the disruption it caused, but the appalling mismanagement aside, the problem was always that Edinburgh Council couldn’t foot the bill alone, and once the new SNP government pulled the plug on further central funding, the burden was on Edinburgh tax-payers alone.

With the UK government commitment to more power and investment for English city regions, there is a strong argument for the Scottish Government to do the same in Edinburgh, not least for the tax-generating potential. Expansion of light rail is central to Manchester’s strategy, and reviewing the refusal to fund Edinburgh’s tram plan without a more obvious regional benefit might need re-examination.

If money was no object then tram expansion would be possible, but more housing is non-negotiable.  “Edinburgh’s biggest threat is complacency. We need to stay focused on growth and investment and that means new homes,” said Donald. “An obsession with not building on the Greenbelt has clouded rational debate about housing delivery. There’s parts of the Greenbelt, like the land near the bypass, nobody would die in a ditch for.

“Edinburgh has benefited from housing development around the city and Midlothian was one of the easiest place in Scotland to get consent. But people who’ve bought houses in Haddington and Gorebridge are now kicking off against more development.”

We might not quite see eye-to-eye on trams, but his conclusion is a warning which needs to be heeded. “In Manchester, there’s consensus across the whole region, but here it’s falling away. Them’s thundering hooves you hear.”

John McLellan is a former Edinburgh Evening News and Scotsman editor, now director of the Scottish news publishing trade association, Newsbrands Scotland. Brought up in Glasgow, McLellan has lived and worked in Edinburgh for over 30 years, and was a City of Edinburgh councillor for the Scottish Conservatives from 2017-22

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