How has Edinburgh's landscape changed in a year?

The "Walnut Whip" can now be seen on Edinburgh's skyline

Many people have been working from home over the last year since the Covid pandemic led to the closure of city centre offices and businesses.

But construction was allowed to return last June and has continued ever since. Anyone who hasn't ventured into the heart of Edinburgh for several months will notice some major changes.

Here are some of the developments that are changing the face of the city centre.

St James Quarter

The main shopping mall entrance to the St James Quarter on Leith Street

The St James Quarter - which includes a huge shopping mall, cinema, two hotels, apartments, restaurants and shops - has advanced at a staggering pace.

The £1bn development has replaced the 1960s St James Centre and New St Andrews House office block at the east end of Princes Street.

On the left side of the glass-roofed shopping mall will be a 75-room Roomzzz Aparthotel.

The complex will have space for 80 shops and 30 restaurants, along with an Everyman cinema and 152 residential apartments.

An entrance from Multrees Walk has now been built. The shopping mall and cinema are due to open in the summer.

W Hotel

The St James Quarter also includes Scotland's first W Hotel, known locally as the Walnut Whip.

Its ribbons of copper-coloured metal, twisting up into a spire, can now be seen on Edinburgh's skyline.

The 244-room hotel is due to open in late 2022.

Haymarket development

The Hyatt Centric hotel, which has started taking shape over the last few months, is part of a £350m development on a brownfield site in Edinburgh's Haymarket.

The hotel will be operated by the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC) under a franchise agreement with Hyatt Hotels Corporation. It is expected to open in 2023.

EICC said the 362-bedroom hotel would address the centre's "conference demand issues".

The site will also have three office blocks and shops.

New Waverley - Canongate

A new UK government regional hub has been built on the New Waverley site off the Canongate in the last year.

About 2,900 civil service jobs will move into the Old Town, including HMRC, which will run one of its 13 regional centres from New Waverley.

The site between the Royal Mile and Calton Road will also feature 185 homes, more than a third of which are due to be finished in the next month.

The development is being built at the former bus depot between New Street and Old Tolbooth Wynd, which lay derelict before being demolished. The site had previously been part of a gas works before East Market Street was built.

The £240m project also involves a number of hotels which have opened in recent years, and 19 Victorian arches on East Market Street that have previously been turned into shops. The corner site has now been earmarked for a £10m Edinburgh Gin distillery and visitor centre.

Virgin Hotel - Cowgate

When the first lockdown started last March, the A-listed India Buildings on Victoria Street backed onto a derelict site which had been empty for 65 years.

A huge extension to the A-listed property has now appeared on the once-derelict site in the Cowgate, which will form the bulk of Scotland's first Virgin Hotel.

The £85m construction project will extend from the India Buildings, which date from 1864, to become a city centre hotel.

The 225-room hotel is due to be completed in 2022.

North Bridge

A lot of additional scaffolding has appeared under the North Bridge in the last year. Engineers have been using it to carry out a full inspection, and have now examined parts of the A-listed structure that have not been seen for 100 years.

City of Edinburgh Council said this had revealed "significantly more deterioration on all three spans of the bridge, leading to more extensive repairs than first anticipated".

There is no impact on the bridge's load capacity, but work has reduced the road to two lanes from four.

The £22.3m project had been due for completion in early 2021 but will not now be finished until late 2022, partly due to the extra work needed on the bridge - which was built in 1897 by Sir William Arrol.

National Galleries of Scotland

Wheelchair access has been built into the hillside leading from East Princes Street Gardens to the entrance of The National Galleries of Scotland in the last year.

Grass that was damaged by the Christmas market in 2019 has also now been repaired, and the concourse has been widened next to The Mound.

The £22m project to redesign the entrance and gallery and re-landscape East Princes Street Gardens is due for completion in 2022.

Picardy Place

The £48.7m redesign of the major junction at Picardy Place within the Edinburgh World Heritage Site and the New Town Conservation Area is now well under way.

In January 2020, just weeks before the lockdown, giant Paolozzi sculptures were returned to the site.

The project, which is due for completion by October 2022, includes a tram stop, a bus interchange and major redesign of the junction, which is next to the new St James Quarter at the top of Leith Walk.

Moda Springside - The McEwan

Hundreds of homes have sprung up along the edge of the Western Approach Road in Edinburgh's city centre

The Moda development, which backs onto the Western Approach Road, has shot up in the last few months.

The £215m project to create 476 homes on the 5.3-acre site is due to be completed by the end of the year.

Diageo's Johnnie Walker tourist attraction

The former House of Fraser building in Edinburgh's West End is now a construction site

The former House of Fraser building at the west end of Princes Street is now surrounded by temporary construction huts.

The former B-listed department store, which was built in 1935, is being turned into Diageo's Johnnie Walker tourist attraction. It is nearly complete and due to open in the summer.

The visitor attraction is part of Diageo's £150m investment in the Johnnie Walker brand.