St Andrew Square Public Realm Improvement Project

The City of Edinburgh Council requires a Contractor to deliver public realm improvements to the area around St Andrew Square, within the city centre. St Andrew Square is a key connection between the existing City Centre West to East Link (CCWEL), the proposed George Street and First New Town (GNT) scheme, and the George Street to Waverley Bridge (GSWB) active travel project.

St Andrew Square has undergone recent transformation with investment to the central gardens in 2008, tram development, and various building redevelopments for retail, hospitality and offices. Edinburgh is a leading global capital city set within an exceptional historic and architectural setting.

The city centre, a unique urban landscape comprising the Old and New Towns of Edinburgh, was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. The First New Town, of which George Street forms its core, carries significant and unique value and is a hive of activity, offering a place to work, visit and live.

At a strategic level, the City Centre Transformation (CCT) Strategy which unifies existing city centre projects into a singular holistic delivery plan. The CCT Strategy identifies key quiet zones in the city centre where people will have priority, with the overall objective to secure a largely car free city centre by 2030.

The City Mobility Plan (CMP) strategy frames a bold, ambitious, and rapid change agenda (underpinned by a target to be net carbon zero City by 2030) and sets out a basis for significant tram, bus network and active travel interventions to improve mobility and address key challenges. The strategy will mean car and heavily bus dominated traffic within the city centre will be replaced by walking and cycling infrastructure, and by smaller cleaner passenger vehicles for those, who with mobility constraints, would find this approach too challenging.

The designs for St Andrew Square, align with many of the CCT and CMP core objectives. Within the project area, design work is ongoing for the northern and western sides of the Square with minor operational changes to the south of the square.

Proposed changes: - Eastern footway (pavement) will be widened to 6.0m creating more space for public realm enhancements. - New protected bi-directional (two-way) cycle track will be introduced on the east side of St David Street and along the north side of St Andrew Square. - Junction upgrades to support safer, easier and more accessible movements for people walking, wheeling and cycling. - Existing blue badge parking, business loading and taxi rank spaces to be retained along southern side of the square, with additional capacity added. - Existing pay and display parking to be removed along northern side of the square and replaced with blue badge spaces on the northern side of the road. In summary, the project will provide a continuous link between various ongoing projects and will maximise accessibility for active modes whilst retaining fundamental operational and servicing requirements including parking, loading and public transport.

Completing this work will enhance the attractiveness of St Andrew Square for everyone and encourage people to spend time in and around the square and within the various local businesses. The works will be undertaken in a highly constrained urban environment and must be carefully planned and executed to minimise disruption.

The Contractor will be required to ensure that access to local businesses and residential properties is maintained at all times throughout the duration of the works. Additional information: We kindly invite interested parties to complete the questionnaire attached to this notice by 30th July 2026. Your answers will help the Council determine the optimal procurement approach.