Festival Streets: Can Edinburgh Work for Everyone This Summer

Each summer Edinburgh changes shape.

This week the City of Edinburgh Council confirmed its 2026 Summertime Streets arrangements: a series of temporary road closures, pedestrian zones and traffic restrictions across parts of the city centre from mid-July until early September. While many of the changes are concentrated in the Old Town, where Festival and Tattoo crowds place exceptional pressure on medieval streets, other locations across the city centre are also affected. The aim is straightforward: to make it easier and safer for the hundreds of thousands of people who move through Edinburgh during its busiest weeks of the year.

For many people this makes perfect sense. Fewer vehicles on heavily crowded streets create a safer and more enjoyable public realm. Edinburgh’s festivals are one of the city’s greatest assets, attracting visitors from around the world, supporting thousands of jobs and bringing significant economic benefits to businesses across the city. There should be a sense of pride in hosting the world’s largest festival, after all.

Yet beneath the traffic management lies a broader question. What does it actually mean for a city centre to work well during festival season? More importantly, who is it designed to work for?

It is easy to present temporary road closures as a contest between pedestrians and motorists. In reality, cities are far more complex than that. A successful street is not defined simply by the absence of traffic. It is defined by whether people with very different needs can move through it safely, comfortably and with dignity.

For many people, walking through Edinburgh in August is one of the great pleasures of the summer. Streets become places to linger rather than simply routes to somewhere else. Music spills from closes and courtyards, performers animate public spaces, cafés and shops fill the pavements, and the city takes on an atmosphere unlike anywhere else.

But the experience is far from universal.

Older people may struggle with longer walking distances created by diversions and road closures. People living with chronic illness or reduced mobility may find steep gradients and crowded pavements exhausting. Wheelchair and mobility scooter users can encounter barriers that are already challenging before temporary infrastructure, queues or street performances are added. Parents pushing buggies, carers accompanying relatives, visually impaired people, those who have neurological disorders such as Dementia, or are on the autistic spectrum and visitors unfamiliarwith Edinburgh all experience the same streets in very different ways.

Spare a thought for the delivery drivers, the commuters, and the postal service.

The greatest challenges are often found in the Old Town itself. Its narrow medieval closes, steep gradients and uneven historic surfaces were never intended to accommodate the extraordinary numbers of people who now use them every August. These characteristics are part of the area’s unique significance and are central to its World Heritage status. Yet they also demonstrate why accessibility, and heritage cannot be treated as competing priorities. They have to be planned together.

Elsewhere across the city centre the issues are different but no less important. Changed traffic patterns, relocated bus stops, temporary barriers and altered access arrangements can all affect how easily people reach workplaces, shops, healthcare appointments and cultural venues. Residents continue to live ordinary lives beneath coincide with the Festival. Children still go to school holiday clubs. Deliveries still need to arrive. Older residents still collect prescriptions. Workers still commute. The city does not become a festival venue; rather, the Festival takes place within a living city.

That distinction matters.

The most successful public spaces are those that accommodate everyday life as well as exceptional events. Good temporary design recognises this from the outset rather than treating residents as an afterthought.

Many of the improvements needed are modest. Clear information before people set out can help them choose accessible routes. Well-positioned seating allows people to rest without cutting short their journey. Accessible toilets, clear wayfinding, thoughtfully located crossing points and well-briefed stewards all make a significant difference. These measures benefit not only disabled people but older residents, families with young children, visitors carrying luggage and anyone who simply needs a moment to pause. Accessibility benefits everyone.

Designing for those who face the greatest challenges almost always produces a better city for everyone else.

This principle has long underpinned good urban design. Streets are not simply transport corridors. They are civic spaces where people meet, trade, protest, celebrate and experience the life of the city. Edinburgh demonstrates this vividly each August. Streets that carry commuters for much of the year become performance spaces, markets and places of encounter. That adaptability is one of the city’s great strengths.

For over 150 years the Cockburn Association has argued that successful places must balance change with stewardship. Edinburgh has never stood still, nor should it. But change works best when it responds to the needs of everyone who uses the city, not simply the majority or the most visible.

The Summertime Streets programme should therefore be judged not simply by whether it moves large crowds efficiently, but by whether it creates a city centre that remains welcoming and accessible to residents, workers and visitors. The measure of success is not only how many people come to Edinburgh in August, but whether the city continues to feel like a place where people of all ages and abilities can go about their daily lives with confidence.

That is ultimately the challenge of every great festival city, and Edinburgh, home of the world’s largest arts festival, ought to be great. The streets must be capable of hosting extraordinary events without ceasing to be ordinary streets.

If Edinburgh can achieve that balance, it will not simply have managed another successful Festival. It will have demonstrated that a historic capital can remain both vibrant and genuinely inclusive. After all, a world-leading festival with its origins in open public rebellion and open conversations, really ought to be leading the way in being open to all.

Further Reading

·        City of Edinburgh Council – Summertime Streets 2026

·        Information for residents, businesses and Blue Badge holders

·        Summertime Streets changes return (Council news)

·        Living Streets Edinburgh Local Group

Image: Pixabay – DesignFife