Princes Street fire: Council leader hits out at John Swinney's 'shameful' lack of response on Princes Street

Council leader Jane Meagher has criticised John Swinney's lack of response to Edinburgh's plea over the Princes Street fire as "shameful".

Cllr Meagher said the Scottish Government had pledged £10m support for Glasgow in dealing with the Union Corner fire within days, but it had taken four weeks to come up with £5 million for Edinburgh following the July 9 blaze at the former Debenhams store.

Council leader Jane Meagher (left) wit Deputy First Minister Jenny Gilruth in Princes Street | Lisa Ferguson/The Scotsman

Deputy First Minister Jenny Gilruth visited the site of the fire on Wednesday to announced the cash support, some of which will be used to support businesses hit by the closure of Princes Street and the suspension of tram services to Leith.

Some money will also be available on a case-by-case basis for festival events forced to relocate. And there will be funding to encourage the use of public transport and to "dress" vacant units on Princes Street, as well as financial support for the work to make the building safe.

Cllr Meagher said: "I'm disappointed that Glasgow seems to be more highly valued than we are, but we are where we are - I'm grateful we've got some money and we will use it to service the city of Edinburgh.

Operatives at work on the facade of the fire-hit building | Lisa Ferguson/The Scotsman

"We've got £5m and we've also got an assurance from the Deputy First Minister that we will continue conversations, so I'm hoping that means that if it turns out that this is going to cost us more than we anticipated the Scottish Government will be open to such a request."

But Cllr Meagher was highly critical of Mr Swinney.

She said: "I wrote to the First Minister following the fire and asked for a meeting and got no response. I sent a further request for a meeting and that eventually resulted in the Deputy First Minister coming. I welcome her presence here. I'm extremely disappointed that the First Minister chose not to respond - Edinburgh is the capital city of this country and a driver of the Scottish economy and if we don't get the attention we deserve from the First Minister of this country I think that's shameful.

"I have to be positive that the Deputy First Minister is open to further conversation, but I do think it's a disappointing signifier of the esteem or importance Edinburgh has over Glasgow and it's hard not to think it might be political. I'd be disappointed."

Asked to expand on what she meant about it being political, she said: "If you look at where the support for the SNP lies, I think that answers your question."

Cllr Meagher said the council was aiming to have Princes Street open again in three weeks, on August 26, but stressed it was weather dependent. “I'm confident that, provided we don't get winds, we will be able to proceed at speed - and there's a lot of work already happened although it may not be apparent from the outside.”

She said details of the scheme to support businesses would be announced soon. “It won't be money allocated to individual businesses, there will be scheme set up - it might be a voucher scheme and businesses will be able to apply.”

Ms Gilruth said the council would take the lead on how the funding was used. She said: “The council leader and officials have welcomed the commitment to up to £5m. That's going to allow them to move at pace in relation to some of the building works, but also a wider business campaign to support the local economy and consideration of broader transport links to improve connectivity to places like Leith and Newhaven where there has been real disruption. We really want to convey the message the city is open for business, particularly as we approach the Festival.”

She said the council had written to the government on July 17. “We’ve been working really closely with them since that time, it’s been a constant programme of engagement between my officials and council officials on the support they wanted - and they were very specific about the support they wanted: for local businesses, for making sure that building was made safe.

“I think we have been able to move at relative pace on this. I hear the challenge, but giving that assurance today is allowing the council to move forward and we'll continue to engage with them on additional support that might be required.”

And she said the circumstances following the fires in Glasgow and Edinburgh were very different.

She said: “Glasgow had to demolish a building, with businesses closing and going to the wall. That's not what's happened here. However, there was still a need for financial certainty. Edinburgh council were keen to have an approach that allowed them to use the finding to channel it into a wider business campaign, as well as support for making the building safe and that's going to allow them to open Princes Street.”

Ms Gilruth said she had been told by engineers working on the project that demolishing the fire-hit building would have taken “many months”. She said: “I asked the question in relation to demolition and I was assured by the engineers that if demolition had been pursued it would have taken a lot longer.”

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