Granton Waterfront economic impact appraisal

Waterfront Edinburgh Limited (WEL) was formed in March 2000 to facilitate the development of the Granton Waterfront. WEL is a private limited company established as a result of a joint venture between The City of Edinburgh Council (CEC) and Scottish Enterprise Edinburgh & Lothian (SEE&L). WEL is one of three organisations, the other two being Forth Ports and Lattice Properties, that between them own or control the Granton Waterfront. EKOS was commissioned for a period of two years to provide economic advisory services, mainly concerned with the estimation and monitoring of outputs from WEL’s operations. The economic impact appraisal aimed to estimate the economic benefits likely to accrue from the Granton Waterfront Project, focusing on the initial phase and the remaining phases through to the completion of the masterplan.

The estimates were derived from a spreadsheet-based model, which was sufficiently flexible to enable sensitivity analyses of the results to changes to key model assumptions.

Estimated economic impacts were calculated for the initial phase and the masterplan. For the initial phase it was estimated that: by 2007, nearly 27 hectares of land would have been reclaimed for development and nearly 93,000 square metres of new build/refurbished commercial and other property would be developed; 2,216 new residential units would be available by 2008; 3,406 full time equivalent jobs would be created by 2008, with office/industrial making up around three quarters; and overall, 1100 net additional jobs would be created at the Edinburgh level and 600 at the Scottish level. It was forecast that the project's value for money, in terms of cost per job created, would improve over the duration of the project. For the masterplan, the following were forecast: 300,000 square metres of new build/refurbished commercial and other property; 7,546 new residential units; 3,406 full time equivalent jobs, the majority office/industrial; 6,500 net additional jobs at the Edinburgh level and 3,700 net additional jobs at the Scottish level; and each additional job created would cost between £5,123 and £4,750.

A monitoring and evaluation framework was included in the report, for the purpose of assisting WEL in measuring the progress of the project. It was recommended that WEL take overall responsibility for the monitoring. Detailed advice was given on undertaking monitoring of the project.