Cockburn Conversations: City Plan 2040 & The National Conversation | 26th August 2026 | 17:00 – 18:30

Click here to sign up for this event!

Two of our key priorities the summer are preparing responses to both the City of Edinburgh Council’s City Plan 2040 consultation, and to the UK-wide National Conversation as Assistant Director, James Garry’s, blog details. Please click HERE to read.

The questions in City Plan 2040, mirror those answered by Lord Cockburn in his letter to the Lord Provost of 1849, though the parlance has changed:

· Where should development happen
· What should be done
· Which buildings, gardens, civic spaces need to be protected
· Which facilities are missing, and what could be improved
· Does planning policy need to change?

The Council is inviting responses from everyone in the city, and consultation closes on the 30th of September 2026. It is time to embrace your inner Cockburn and critically assess your local area. Lord Cockburn based his letter on his knowledge and passion for Edinburgh mediated through the experience of his vast travels to other towns, cities and hamlets throughout the UK. So whether you’re at home or abroad, in company or in glorious isolation, please take time to explore and consider your surroundings with the above questions in mind. Perhaps walk through what’s contained within twenty minutes of your neighbourhood. There is a richness in exploring these themes with families, neighbours, colleagues, and friends. There is also real value in quietly recollecting what’s changed throughout your time in the city, for good or for ill. Everyone rightly has an opinion on the quality of where they live and City Plan 2040 is your opportunity to shape Edinburgh’s aspirations and priorities for the next generation. Please do share your views through the consultation portal, and ideally, also directly with us at admin@cockburnassociation.org.uk by the 14th of September, to help ensure a rigorous community-led response.

The National Conversation
A possible rainy-day activity, or potentially volatile dinner party conversation topic, is the ‘National Conversation.’ Intended to be UK-wide in scope, but in danger of being coloured by highly charged football-related sentiment, this apolitical survey seeks answers to the other side of civic life – what makes communities strong and resilient. The underlying logic, and one that underpins most enlightened approaches to socio-economic development, is to approach the challenge of community from grassroots, asset-based approach, and to seek the solutions within communities, rather than impose change upon them. It’s a subject one can easily imagine Lord Cockburn debating at dinner parties, and certainly one which taxed our founding Council Member, Sir Patrick Geddes. Individual responses – written or recorded – are invited by the end of the summer.

We’ll be hosting an online Cockburn Conversation on both the City Plan 2040 and The National Conversation on August 26th, 17:00-18:30 as an alternative festival fringe event, so please register HERE to join us.