Living Rent and the fight for an affordable Edinburgh Fringe

With the Edinburgh Festival season in full swing once again, concerns have once again been raised by both artists and audiences about the prohibitive cost of accommodation in the capital during August.

While the spectre of exorbitantly high prices for even the barest forms of lodging has been a blight upon the Fringe for many years, the simultaneous advent of the festival and Oasis’ much-anticipated reunion gigs at Murrayfield stadium have intensified the problem to unprecedented levels, with hotel rooms reportedly being listed for up to £4,000 per night and hostels charging hundreds of pounds for a bunk bed.

Issues of affordability in the capital are not restricted to August however, but instead reflect the consequences of the predatory landlordism that have made Edinburgh Scotland’s most expensive city for renters – a situation which has only worsened following the expiration of Scotland’s cap on rent increases earlier this year, with no apparent progress on national rent controls on the horizon.

The tenants’ union Living Rent have long campaigned for action to be taken to address Scotland’s housing crisis, and have recently sought to highlight how its iniquities have manifested during the festival.

Heckle spoke to Living Rent’s Edinburgh City Chair, Joshua Climax, on what needs to be done to deliver a fairer Fringe.

Living Rent has stated that “the Fringe should be accessible for all, profitable for artists and benefit the city and the people who live here”. What specific actions or reforms would Living Rent like to see at either the local or the national level in order to bring this about?

The Edinburgh Fringe needs to benefit the people who live here as well as the people who travel to the city. 

A substantial part of the issue is housing costs. With the huge increase in visitors, landlords are incentivised to charge extortionate amounts for short-term lets rather than let them as normal rentals. This in turn drives up the price of the remaining rentals putting pressure on a city that is in the grips of a housing crisis.

By clamping down on both the number of short-term lets and how much landlords are able to charge, this would ensure residents are able to live in the city they call home and ensure that performers are not paying through the nose for accommodation for a month. In turn, this would ensure that more working-class performers would be able to perform.

The big Fringe companies also need to consider their role in the current system. As it stands, the Fringe is not accessible to working-class artists, and the Fringe without a diverse range of voices ceases to be fringe.

Has the end of the rent cap in Scotland earlier this year and the stalling of national rent controls affected the Edinburgh Fringe, and if so, how?

Edinburgh’s housing crisis is completely out of control. Since 2010, rent has increased 104%. No-one’s wages have increased anywhere near at the same rate. The skyrocketing of rents at the same time as house prices have increased has trapped more and more in the private rented sector, further forcing rents up. 

The government’s stalling on rent controls has ensured that landlords have been able to hike up rents as much as they like at the expense of tenants. Landlords hiking up rents has in turn allowed short-term let landlords to increase rents as well, forcing visitors to pay through the nose for often shoddy accommodation.

What are the most prevalent problems tied to the Fringe that Living Rent have heard about from its members?

Due to the amount that landlords are able to make during August, many students find that they are only able to rent their flats from late August. We have also had instances of landlords attempting to evict their tenants before the Fringe in order to convert it into a short-term holiday let. 

The government needs to clamp down on unlawful evictions, and ensure that the burden of proof around evictions is put on landlords rather on tenants to prove that they should not be evicted.

What support has Living Rent provided to its members in response to these issues?

Any member facing an eviction should get in touch with us and together we can fight to ensure that they can remain in their home.

Is it possible to provide affordable accommodation to both Edinburgh residents and visiting artists, festival workers and tourists without them being pitted against each other, and if so, what measures would most effectively do so?

The Fringe needs to work for everyone. There needs to be caps on the numbers of short-term lets, rent controls to bring down rents and an increase in social housing provision to ensure that everyone in Edinburgh has access to safe, secure, affordable housing.

Alongside that, the big Fringe venues need to put in place measures to ensure that working-class artists and performers are able to afford to travel to the Fringe.

Living Rent has mentioned both the high costs of putting on a Fringe show for working-class artists, and the enduring problem of exploitative pay and conditions for Fringe workers. Are there measures beyond those specifically relating to housing and accommodation that Living Rent would like to see implemented to address these issues?

All venues should sign up to Unite’s Fair Hospitality Charter. This commits to paying the real living wage of £12.60 an hour, rest breaks, equal pay for young workers, minimum hour contracts, an anti-sexual harassment policy, paid transport after 11pm, consultation on rota changes, 100% of tips going to staff, trade union access and no unpaid trial shifts. 

No company should be able to host job adverts that don’t meet the criteria in the above charter and the City of Edinburgh Council should make full use of its licensing powers to prevent repeat offender venues from operating.

Earlier this year, Edinburgh Council voted to relax its licensing policy on short-term lets during the festival season, making it less expensive to let out properties and watering down health and safety requirements. Despite this, there have been reports that existing licensing law is not being widely enforced, and that the combination of the Fringe and the reunion performance of Oasis have caused prices to skyrocket to unprecedented levels. Is further reform of short-term lets necessary?

Edinburgh is the perfect example of how the explosion of holiday lets has forced countless tenants out of the communities they call home due to the loss of long-term homes for residents. Those that can find a home, have seen their rent hiked up due to the unchecked surge in holiday lets hitting Edinburgh’s housing supply. We need a city that works for the people, not just the people passing through.

“We need a city that works for the people, not just the people passing through.”

The current short-term let regulations we have are tepid at best. The policy is only as good as the enforcement, and the council needs to be much stricter with its enforcement. As we can see across Europe, other cities are bringing in far tighter regulations. Barcelona has just announced a ban on Airbnb; Edinburgh can and should do the same.

Are there any further commitments Living Rent would expect or demand from the Fringe Society, Edinburgh Council, Creative Scotland, the Scottish Government or Scotland’s political parties with regard to the Fringe?

Edinburgh residents know what they need. The Fringe Society, Edinburgh Council, and the Scottish Government need to ensure that residents are meaningfully engaged with on the future of the fringe. A failure to do so will ensure that residents are further alienated from the festival and the festival becomes increasingly for tourists at the expense of residents.

There needs to be a community-led mass consultation process that works with members of Living Rent and delivers concrete measures regarding next year’s festival season that can be put in place as a matter of urgency.