Princes Street Gardens events banned in Edinburgh over rockfall fears

Edinburgh Summer Sessions are held annually in Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens

Several large events have been banned in Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens until an issue of rockfall from the castle is fixed.

A major access route into the park has been closed since 2019 due to the threat of falling rocks.

Large trucks carrying staging and lighting equipment had been using an alternative route through a graveyard.

However, council officials now say the heavy vehicles are taking their toll on the St Cuthbert's graveyard.

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Council officials said they will now only permit large events on four days of the year to use vehicles along the alternative route, including Hogmanay and the closing or opening night of the International Festival in the summer.

It means events such as the annual Edinburgh Summer Seasons series of gigs and the Fly Open Air electronic music festival would need to reduce the length of their events before applying to the council for the remaining two days available.

Historic Environment Scotland, which manages Edinburgh Castle rock, has also had the popular city walking route, the Radical Road, closed due to health and safety fears over the risk of rockfall since 2018.

Sir Tom Jones

Val Walker, City of Edinburgh Council's culture and communities convener said: "The primary reasons are the necessary closure of the goods entrance to West Princes Street Gardens at King's Stables Road due to rockfall and our commitment to increasing our environmental protection measures.

"Until a more permanent solution for the rockfall is found, these guidelines will limit major events in the gardens to four per year."

She added that smaller events in the Ross Bandstand in the gardens would remain unaffected.

The city's Hogmanay celebrations will still go ahead in the gardens

The gardens hosted six Summer Sessions shows this summer, when the series of pop and rock concerts returned for the first time in three years following the lifting of Covid restrictions, with Sir Tom Jones, Simple Minds, Travis and Simply Red all performing.

Other acts that have played the summer shows include Orbital, BB King, Tony Bennett, Franz Ferdinand, Bryan Ferry.

Organisers of Edinburgh Summer Sessions said it was not only a huge disappointment but a huge blow to the live music scene in Edinburgh.

'Struggle to understand limit'

Geoff Ellis, chief executive of DF Concerts, which runs the Summer Sessions, said: "We overcame the understandable access concerns this year and delivered a fantastic, safe event and a safe build and break with environmental concerns very much at the forefront of our planning as they are for all DF Concerts' events.

"All events of scale in the gardens require pretty much the same set up and breakdown periods regardless of whether they are for one event day or several event days as in the case of ESS therefore we struggle to understand why the new limit is for two event days only.

"Concerts at Princes Street Gardens will be sorely missed by tens of thousands of music fans every August."

A spokesperson for Historic Environment Scotland said; 

"There have been no recorded rockfalls on external rockfaces since 2018. Inspections of the rock face are carried out on a regular basis and HES continues to work with City of Edinburgh Council and our respective rock specialists to reduce the risk of rockfalls."