Debate and voting down access to private gardens by Edinburgh Council - full transcript
Edited transcript of the debate on Councillor Dan Heap's motion on public access to private shared gardens — City of Edinburgh Council, Culture and Communities Committee, 8 June 2026. Speakers are named using the speaker map above; party affiliations are from City of Edinburgh Council records. Lightly edited for readability: filler words, false starts and repetitions removed, spoken numbers rendered as figures, and names garbled in transcription corrected. Nothing has been added and no argument has been altered. See the editorial notes at the end.
Andrew Rose, Committee Clerk · 00:00:00
The final agenda item is item 5.1, a motion by Councillor Heap relating to public access to private shared gardens.
Councillor Margaret Arma Graham, Convener (Labour & Co-operative) · 00:00:12
Councillor Heap.
Councillor Dan Heap (Scottish Greens) — moving the motion
00:00:13
Thank you very much, Convener. What we're asking to do today is kick off a process that will help to open up some of the most famous and beautiful shared garden spaces we have in Edinburgh. Many of them, although not exclusively, are in the New Town area.
Just to be very clear, the motion asks owners to do this on a voluntary basis. There is no legal power we have to compel access at all. So we are asking owners, in the spirit of community, to open up access to these gardens.
We often call them gardens, but in many cases they are better described as private parks rather than private gardens, given that some of them are very large — many acres.
Data from the Scottish Household Survey shows that adults from the most deprived 20% of Scotland are about 13% less likely to have access to green space, and about a fifth less likely to visit such spaces.
There is something that sits very uncomfortably with me about having a large number of these gardens — large, beautiful spaces, enjoyed by the owners and by nature — locked behind gates to 99.9% of the population. That sits uncomfortably with me, and it just doesn't feel right. It is not the kind of city the Greens want, where so many people are locked out of green space like this.
It is by no means unprecedented. We already do this at St Andrew Square, which has always been a private garden but has been open for public access for a long time.
So let's start a conversation today. It is a conversation that will take some time. It is technically complicated, because we will have to look at issues of funding, public liability insurance and so on. But I really do think this is an opportunity to make sure that everyone in Edinburgh can access high-quality green space.
Convener · 00:02:33
Seconder — Councillor?
Councillor Alys Mumford (Scottish Greens) — seconding
00:02:36
That's me, Convener. Thank you very much, and thanks to Councillor Heap for bringing this motion.
I think we can see from the response to it that a lot of people share the view that it seems fundamentally unfair. At its heart this is an issue of equality. If you walk past these gated parks with young children, you will soon be asked to explain why some people are allowed in and others aren't.
As we have heard, there is a clear precedent for what is being proposed. St Andrew Square is a private garden, and the public were locked out until 2008, when public access was negotiated. It is now a widely used and much-loved space. If we were to tell lots of people in Edinburgh now that that didn't used to be the case, they would be very surprised. It plays host to public events. We see the same with Charlotte Square when the Book Festival was there.
In London, St John's Lodge Garden in Regent's Park is privately owned but accessible to the public. Internationally, in New York City, the Privately Owned Public Spaces scheme offers public access to privately owned plazas and parks — again through negotiation and voluntary opening.
We have already heard today from another member of the committee that they have the right to own a key but do not hold one. That is a very common situation: even people who would have access to the gardens don't, because it is too much faff to arrange, and for a range of other reasons.
The other key factor is the potential for nature and climate work. If the council is able to be involved in the management of these parks — we know there will be massively increased demand for shade in the coming years as the climate changes and heatwave deaths increase. We are already seeing other cities having to think about this. Street trees take a long time to provide the cover that is needed. These are huge spaces with massive potential for rewilding and nature restoration.
But the main point for me is that access to nature is vital for all of our residents and visitors, for their mental health and their wellbeing — not just for those with a key. Thank you very much.
Councillor Margaret Arma Graham, Convener (Labour & Co-operative) — proposing no action
00:04:26
Thank you. I have listened to what both the proposer and seconder of the motion have to say. My view is completely the reverse, and I am going to propose no action, for several reasons.
These are gardens. These are the green spaces that connect — although they are not directly connected to people's houses, it is their garden space. I am in the fortunate position where my garden is connected directly to my house. Some people in the townhouses in the New Town — there are four families in one block where previously, when these buildings were built, it used to be one family. Some of them live in basements.
I am quite sure there could be improvements in the way these are managed, and in how people within the New Town who are allowed to use them get access. I think that is something that could be taken up voluntarily through the street committees and so on in the New Town. But I don't think it is something that we as a council should be involving ourselves in.
The other thing is that the motion talks about green space. Edinburgh is one of the greenest cities. Every community within our city has access to excellent parks and green spaces, and I cannot think of communities in the city that don't already have access.
St Andrew Square was a bit different, because predominantly it is all businesses — they are not private residents living around St Andrew Square. So that was a different and more interesting way of being able to open that space. But all the rest of them are very treasured spaces of the residents who live there.
So that is why I am proposing no action, and I am looking for somebody to second that. Councillor Cameron.
Councillor Lezley Marion Cameron (Scottish Labour)
00:06:55
Thank you, Convener. I was involved in making St Andrew Square become publicly accessible. This conversation first started — I came off the council in 2003 — and it took a long five years for action to happen. The initiation of that conversation was a conversation with the then chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland about having Christmas lights on St Andrew Square.
So there was a willingness, as the Convener said, in terms of businesses being keen to be involved. That was way back in the day when Christmas was in its infancy — to have some Christmas lights, and then it progressed from there.
But the fact that it took so long for that to happen, given the ownership changes around it — I agree that it works successfully, but these things are not simple. They are not straightforward, and they take a lot of energy and time. And that was also in the days when this council had significantly more funds than it does today.
I am not unsympathetic to Councillor Heap's motion, because I agree that we should all have access to space, and nurture nature and all of that. But to make a decision today that compels this council to use officer time and public money to do something which — I hope this discussion could inspire some private owners to think about that and do it voluntarily and willingly themselves. I would commend Councillor Heap on that point. Often a discussion can inspire action to be taken by others who really do have the power.
But for this council, at this time, when we have so many other pressing priorities — housing, homelessness, transport, all the stuff that we need to do — and we do have plans for our visitor levy.
So I welcome the topic being discussed. I am grateful for the opportunity to share my own very close experience of kicking off that process. I think we are back in 2001 or 2002 for the first conversations, and it took until 2008. It came to fruition because we had set up a city centre management company, something that we don't currently have at the moment. So there are a number of pieces in the jigsaw.
And to Councillor Mumford's point about people asking questions: very often people will say, well, why have we got St Andrew Square but not Charlotte Square? That is just the reality of the background. So I hope that is helpful information for colleagues.
I am supporting the Convener's position of moving no action, for the reasons I have outlined. But I do hope that as a result of the discussion it will lead to some thinking among those who do have the access and do have the keys to these places, to maybe be a bit more community-minded — and meantime leave us to focus on what we need to do with our very, very scarce and pressing resources. Thank you, Convener.
Convener · 00:09:49
Thank you, Councillor Cameron. Councillor.
Councillor Amy McNeese-Mechan (Scottish National Party)
00:09:53
Thank you. I just wanted to add my support to the points that Councillor Mumford made regarding the ecosystem services that these places do provide to us. If this does pass today, any enhancement to that would be wonderful.
Some of my own constituents have also commented that the planting doesn't currently reflect a lot of the original plan that integrated these gardens with the New Town. So maybe something can be done in terms of looking at the historic planting, and then how we update that to meet the climate challenge that we are facing.
I just wanted to conclude by saying that we mentioned optics earlier in this meeting. To me, the thing that makes me uncomfortable is the optics of people coming to visit our beautiful city. They often do visit the New Town, and they see that there are gardens for some people but not for others. A lot of cities don't have that. To me it reinforces some of the negative "tale of two cities" associations that go back historically in the city. I don't think that is the way the city wants to be seen. So I will be supporting the motion.
Convener · 00:11:29
Councillor Jones.
Councillor Tim Jones (Scottish Conservatives)
00:11:31
Thank you, Convener. You beat me to it — I was going to propose no action, but you got there first.
There are a couple of points, if I may. First and foremost, and I am reliably informed of this, residents are very concerned about any proposals that may result in opening up private gardens which function as such for the residents in the New Town and the West End. And as Councillor Cameron alluded to, this has been explored before and was vociferously and vigorously opposed. So from the point of view of the residents, I think it is a non-starter.
Also, with regard to the practicalities: compared with St Andrew Square, it would be complicated in a way that St Andrew Square was not, as the owners are owners of the properties. So there are many more owners than there are for St Andrew Square.
I'm sorry, I don't really agree with some of the sentiments expressed today. This sounds to me like a land grab, and it is simply against Conservative principles and therefore must be vigorously opposed. Thank you, Convener.
Convener · 00:12:58
Thank you, Councillor. Councillor McFarlane.
Councillor Finlay McFarlane (Scottish National Party)
00:13:02
Thank you. With this motion, I slightly regret the fact that there are two city centre councillors and it would have been nice to have had some notice of something like this, because already my emails are popping. And it is an additional committee as well, so people had less chance to respond and feed in from the various garden associations. My emails are coming in literally as I am speaking to you all. So I regret that.
I also regret that we have not had the chance to talk this through. For example, in the Charlotte Square capital project, in the multiple workshops I have been attending as a ward councillor, we have been saying that of course, if we are going to do the wider works to that square, it would be really good to open up access, because it is very similar to the St Andrew Square situation where it is commercial owners and not residents. So it is not for want of trying. The officers have tried to engage with those landowners and got nowhere. So I worry that this motion raises expectations among the public about what the ultimate outcome is actually going to be.
I don't have a key, because it is also quite expensive. If you have a key to a private garden, you are then liable and responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of that garden, and therefore you get to enjoy it. [My cat has just jumped on my desk.] And so that complicates matters.
A lot of the New Town flats are mixed buildings and they don't have a back green. You could be in a tenement in Tollcross and you will have access to a shared back green. These houses don't have that. They don't have garden space — the garden space was built in the centre, just due to the way the town planning was working.
In terms of no action: I am fine with the work going ahead. I think we need to be open-eyed about what the results of that are going to be. I don't think you are going to have people clamouring to open up their gardens, partly because it is complicated in terms of ownership. Some of these gardens are tied to the title deeds of your home. Some of them are true member gardens — there are a couple, but they are very small — where you could be a member from anywhere in the city and join. Maybe they would have a different attitude to the council taking over the liability of the garden. But where is the money going to come from for that? So it is very, very complicated.
Where we should continue to push is those few examples — Charlotte Square being the main one — where it is a commercial landlord and where there is such an obvious case for public use of that green space. It would make total sense to be able to enjoy it, even if it doesn't have commercial premises inside it like St Andrew Square does, if it is just a quiet green space for people to enjoy.
But when you get into the smaller ones — for example, I could have a key to the garden that I live near. However, there are three or four huge, beautiful green public parks nearby, in this case immediately adjacent to that garden. So I don't really see the need, or why you would want to do that anyway, or have the liability.
Different gardens will have different opinions, different gardens will have different ownership structures. It is very complicated. So we are fine for the work to be done. I don't expect anything to come of it, to be quite honest. But I think if we can continue to push those with wholly commercial ownership, then that is a very different story to those gardens that are in private ownership of the people who live around them. Thank you, Convener.
Convener · 00:16:19
Thank you, Councillor McFarlane. Councillor Thornley.
Councillor Edward Thornley (Scottish Liberal Democrats)
00:16:23
Thanks, Convener. Call me crazy — I want the council's parks and green space officers to be focused on improving the council's parks and green spaces.
To my mind, the best way we can tackle the inequality that Councillor Heap talks about, which as he knows is something the Liberal Democrat group has worked to try and address across this term of the council, is to ensure that our public parks are as accessible and fantastic as they possibly can be. And we have made some really great progress on that as a committee.
We are talking about a very small number of gardens across the city, predominantly in particularly well-off areas. I am not comfortable turning around and saying that we are intending to use council taxpayers' money to maintain private gardens, as the motion suggests. And I don't quite understand how the council intends to justify that to people who would expect that their council tax is spent on council parks instead of on a private garden. I cannot see how we justify this to the people who pay us the money that is supposed to go towards council parks.
We have done so much work on improving our parks and green spaces. We are nowhere near where we would like to be yet; there is plenty to be done. If there is spare resource knocking around, I would like to see it in those parks. So we will support no action. Thank you.
Convener · 00:17:52
Councillor Lang.
Councillor Kevin Lang (Scottish Liberal Democrats)
00:17:55
Thank you very much. The person in this debate who I thought gave the really compelling rationale for why this should go no further was Councillor McFarlane, because he literally said: I am happy for this work to go ahead, but it will come to nothing.
I know how much we ask of our officers on limited resources. I think it would be wholly irresponsible of this committee to ask officers to divert their attention and their resource onto a piece of work knowing that the chances of this coming to anything are infinitesimally small.
And as Councillor Thornley has said, right now we have some great public parks, but we also have some parks that are not in great shape and need further resource and further focus. Like others on this committee who have spoken, I do not want to divert them from the parks which council taxpayers currently fund, and expect decent parks in return for the council tax money that they pay.
And I really do not understand why we would want to be taking on the responsibility and the cost of maintenance and cleanliness, and potentially insurance, for private parks that are owned by some of the wealthiest people in the city. So for all of those reasons, I think it should go no further.
Convener · 00:19:20
Thank you, Councillor Lang. Any other contributions? Are you going to take us forward then, Andrew? Do I have to sum up?
Andrew Rose, Committee Clerk · 00:19:32
Councillor Heap to sum up.
Convener · 00:19:35
To sum up — it's his motion. Yes, Councillor Heap.
Councillor Dan Heap (Scottish Greens) — summing up
00:19:40
Thank you very much, and thank you to colleagues for what has been, for the most part, a substantive and helpful discussion.
What I would do to conclude is come back to the first point I made, about having a huge part of our city centre closed off to the vast majority of the public. These spaces have huge potential, as Alys said, on both nature and climate grounds — to expand access to shade, to improve nature recovery, and to provide access to people who don't always have the access they should to green space.
I think I need to address the point that we are funding private gardens. We are doing that in order to make sure that they are publicly accessible. So I appreciate you trying to paint me as giving private owners a big financial boon, but that is clearly not what I am doing. I will leave it there.
Convener · 00:20:53
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Andrew.
The vote
Andrew Rose, Committee Clerk · 00:20:57
Thank you. We have two positions, which is the motion moved by Councillor Heap, and the amendment by Councillor Graham, which is for no action.
If I can ask members please to raise your hands in support of the amendment by Councillor Graham for no action. That is six votes. If I could ask members to take their hands down, please. Councillor Rust, if you would take your hand down. Thank you.
And if I could ask members to put their hands up if they are supporting the motion by Councillor Heap. That's five votes.
So, six votes for the amendment and five votes for the motion. The amendment is carried.
Convener · 00:21:56
Thank you, Andrew.
Andrew Rose · 00:21:57
And that's the end of business for today, Convener.
Convener · 00:22:00
Okay, thank you very much everyone. You've got an hour back in your diaries, as this seems to be the saying now, and the sun is out — so go and enjoy.
**Editorial notes
What was changed. Filler words ("uh", "um"), false starts, stammers and immediate repetitions were removed. Spoken numbers were rendered as figures ("two thousand and eight" → 2008). Sentence breaks and paragraphs were added for readability. Speaker names come from the speaker map at the top of this page; party affiliations are from City of Edinburgh Council records. No words were added and no argument was changed or reordered.
Names corrected from the transcription. The automatic transcript rendered several names inconsistently. Corrected here: "Councillor heat" / "Councillor hate" → Heap; "Councillor camera" → Cameron; "Alice" → Alys (Mumford); "Andre" → Andrew (Rose); "Saint Andrews career" / "Saint Andrews Gardens" → St Andrew Square.
Heap's self-correction. In his opening speech Councillor Heap said "13% more likely — sorry, less likely". This is rendered as "13% less likely", which is what he meant and what the Scottish Household Survey data shows.
One factual correction. The raw transcript has Councillor Mumford saying the public "were locked out in 2008". That reverses her meaning — St Andrew Square opened to the public in 2008. Rendered here as "locked out until 2008", consistent with the rest of the debate and with Councillor Cameron's account.
Sources
Original debate recording: https://edinburgh.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/1096218/start_time/2211000