The Royal Highland Centre is facing a licensing change after both Edinburgh City Council and Police Scotland identified a number of shortcomings with how it informed emergency services of high risk events.
Over the course of the pandemic, council officers and cops discovered that the Royal Highland Centre were not giving them sufficient advance warning of events which required a police contingency plan.
As a result, the council will be changing the licensing for the venue so Edinburgh Highland Centre will have to apply for a separate licence for each high risk event they run.
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This began in 2020 when the council decided to grant two separate licences - one specifically for the Royal Highland Show held by RHASS and another for the Royal Highland Centre itself.
As part of the Royal Highland Centre’s licence, high risk events had to be subject to an Events Planning Operations Group, also known as an EPOG.
These meetings with the council are designed to ensure any risk to the public is minimised by introducing police plans and other safety measures.
Over the course of the pandemic, Police Scotland and council officers identified that not all high risk events were being notified in a timely manner. This meant that the EPOG process could not always reach an agreement and take actions.
In May 2021, both Police Scotland and council officers again found “a number of shortcomings” including adhering to Covid notification as well as events they described as high risk and should have been subject to an EPOG.
This meant that some events that should have been the subject of EPOG meetings and had police plans in place in order to minimise risk to attendees had neither.
When asked, a representative from the Royal Highland Centre said: “There was one comment raised by the committee in relation to delayed paperwork. This has been addressed and we have given elected members confidence that this has resolved for future events.
“The RHC has a long history of hosting high profile music festivals and concerts – there has been a 2-year hiatus due to Covid-19, but we are thrilled to see the site come alive again with people getting together to see world-class acts and have a good time.
"We have a busy events schedule in the coming months including some new additions such as Connect Festival, the Big Top series and of course the Royal Highland Show which returns again in June to celebrate its bicentenary.”
Now the Royal Highland Centre is facing further changes to its licensing in order to allow for greater scrutiny of high risk events.
As well as the Royal Highland Show and Royal Highland Centre being given separate licences, the council has recommended that the Royal Highland Centre itself will have its licence split.
Instead councillors recommend it will be given one yearly licence for most events but will exclude high risk events like “dances, raves or events of a similar nature”, which are now to be subject to their own licence.
The hope is that this will still allow a variety of events to still come to the show ground “whilst allowing the council an opportunity to manage any public safety concerns about specific events.”
A spokesman for Edinburgh City Council said: “The Highland Society fully engaged with the Council to ensure that events are managed appropriately and this has been reflected in their new Public Entertainment Licence.”
