St Giles' has stood on the Royal Mile for the best part of 900 years, so what happens to the streets around is felt keenly. We at the Cathedral are delighted to add our support to the proposal for an Old Town Business Improvement District.


Positioned at the physical and historic centre of the Old Town, St Giles' receives several hundred thousand visitors annually, in addition to the considerable number of residents, worshippers and members of the public who pass beneath its crown spire each day. This footfall gives the Cathedral a direct interest in the practical challenges currently facing the area, among them street cleanliness, public safety and the management of visitor numbers at peak periods. A Business Improvement District would offer businesses, cultural institutions and civic bodies a formal means of addressing these matters collectively rather than in isolation. I know from my time in Bloomsbury, London, the difference a Business Improvement District can make to a community.

The importance of community should also be borne in mind in any future development of the Old Town. St Giles' has long functioned not merely as a place of worship but as a gathering point for the wider community, a characteristic shared by the Old Town more broadly, which remains a place of residence and daily life as much as a destination for visitors. Any Business Improvement District should give due weight to strengthening this sense of community, alongside its commercial objectives.

Finally, St Giles’ considers it essential that any programme of investment undertaken through a Business Improvement District should serve to protect and champion the authenticity of the Old Town. Its character has developed over centuries and is expressed in its closes, historic buildings and civic institutions. As pressures associated with tourism and commercial activity continue to grow, the Cathedral would wish to see improvements that preserve and enhance this historic character, rather than diminish it.

For these reasons St Giles' Cathedral is pleased to lend our support to the development of an Old Town Business Improvement District.