Why delay to re-opening of Edinburgh's Princes Street wouldn't happen in Manchester – Stephen Jardine

If you want to see the strongest possible argument for directly elected city mayors in Scotland, just head along Princes Street in Edinburgh.

Except you can’t. The capital’s main thoroughfare remains closed four weeks after a blaze destroyed the old Debenhams department store. Work continues to try to save the 150-year-old façade and make what remains safe but that has resulted in huge disruption with traffic diverted and the tram service severely curtailed.

A joint fire and police investigation into the cause is underway. Once it’s completed, I’m sure we can expect the site’s owner, London-based Criterion Capital, to start work quickly to restore the building. Just as home owners have insurance to cover the cost of rebuilding in the event of a fire, we can rest assured that Criterion and billionaire boss Asif Aziz will have everything in place to ensure 109-112 Princes Street is returned to its former glory.

If he has any problems with that, he should speak to fellow billionaire Anders Povlsen who didn’t let a terrible fire in the Jenners building stop him from carrying out what sounds like a remarkable restoration of the old department store at huge personal expense. We will see the fruits of that next year.

READ MORE: Why Princes Street fire is the wake-up call that Edinburgh desperately needed

Princes Street has been closed since the fire on July 9 | contributed

An unacceptable situation

But in the meantime, we have a problem. August brings over a million extra people into Edinburgh and the main street is shut and not expected to reopen until the end of the month.

So where is the emergency plan to deal with that situation? Lib Dem transport spokesman Kevin Lang says the current situation is unacceptable: “It is difficult to imagine Oxford Street in London, the Champs-Élysées in Paris or Broadway in New York remaining closed for this length of time in similar circumstances.”

This week the Scottish Government stepped in with a welcome £5 million of support to help mitigate costs for the council and support affected businesses. Some bars and restaurants in Leith report takings down a quarter since the trams stopped running.

Fifty years ago, emergency scaffolding would have been erected, the trams would have going again and it would have been business as usual for Princes Street in days. Modern health and safety considerations and an aversion to any risk whatsoever now make that impossible.

READ MORE: The shocking difference in the SNP's response to two devastating fires in Glasgow and Edinburgh

An economic machine

No one doubts the complexity of the task or the difficulties facing those working on the site but the current crisis highlights a bigger issue.

Edinburgh is now a huge economic machine. Last year the value of goods and services produced in city per head of population surpassed London for the first time but Scotland’s capital is still being served by a municipal structure dating back to the days when Sean Connery delivered milk in a horse and cart.

That’s no disrespect to the current leadership but the needs of Scotland’s capital city have changed. The way it’s led hasn’t. Would Andy Burnham have allowed Deansgate in Manchester to grind to a halt when he was city mayor?

I think we all know the answer. Edinburgh desperately needs a directly elected major with the experience to lead the city from the front, to take big decisions, steer strategy, handle emergencies and represent us at the highest possible level every single day. And to get Princes Street reopened sooner rather than later.