THE Fringe Festival is a spectacular time in Edinburgh every year, with the greatest comedians, artists and performers from around the world coming to visit our fantastic city.

We see our city become a diverse crowd of creatives, visitors, and locals, but over recent years, we’ve also seen the strain this celebration of art and culture has put on our public services and local workforce.

From strikes by our council refuse workers, to protests against exploitative work practices by venues, workers in recent years have quite rightly highlighted how too often the success of the Fringe is built on the back of low pay, long shifts and poor conditions.

I’m pleased councils have made an improved pay offer to refuse workers, which has seen the potential for further action put on hold for now. Visitors to Edinburgh should see our beautiful city at its best – but to do so, we need well-paid and valued workers carrying out the hard work day and night.

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There’s still no end in sight however to industrial action on our trains and trams, and overcrowded buses show just how much our public services are stretched during the festival period.

The housing crisis in Edinburgh has been long documented too, and it’s well understood how the festival negatively impacts on affordability and availability of housing for locals.

Thanks to changes in renters’ rights, the annual routine of turfing out students and renters from their homes once a year to hike up costs for the month of August is mostly a thing of the past.

New regulations on short-term lets, spearheaded by the Scottish Greens in Parliament and local campaigners in the city, are also starting to have an impact, with Edinburgh City Council reporting more than 3000 fewer short-term lets listed on a major platform earlier this year.

Each one of those is a holiday let now available to become someone’s long-term home. It will take a few years to see the full impact of these regulations, but anecdotal reports are already showing it hasn’t had any negative impact on visitor numbers to the festivals. Rather, it has shared the benefits more widely in central Scotland, with visitors now exploring further afield and travelling in to enjoy the festival.

These kind of measures make our city more liveable, whilst sharing the benefits of culture and tourism more broadly across Scotland.

The Fringe must enhance our city, we must use the experience to make Edinburgh even greater. We can’t let it wear the city down every time it rolls around.

Across Scotland, our councils need an urgent funding boost. With dismal levels of consequential funding from Westminster and the toughest devolution budgets being made in Holyrood, we all know that something needs to change. A key part of that is giving councils the power to raise their own revenue and decide how to spend it.

That’s why the Scottish Greens secured the delivery of the UK’s first visitor levy, and I’m delighted to see Edinburgh City Council have confirmed their intention to roll it out locally from 2026.

The proposed Edinburgh levy will generate up to £50 million a year, money which will be spent on improving local streets and parks, supporting local cultural projects, and building more affordable homes in our nation’s capital.

If this levy had been in place for the sell-out Taylor Swift concerts earlier this year, it would have raised more than £600,000 for the local community in just one weekend.

Glasgow will soon be following suit, with Scottish Green councillors recently laying a motion to begin work towards a tourist tax in the city. With its growing reputation for hosting international sporting events and major concerts, I can’t wait to see how Glasgow will also benefit from this kind of progressive, local power.

There’s also huge potential for a visitor levy in rural areas too, with our beautiful islands, major destinations like the North Coast 500, and our soon-to-be-expanded national parks, great locations for future visitor levy schemes.

These could support vital rural bus routes, to be used by both locals and visitors alike throughout the year, or rewilding schemes which provide local jobs, restore our environment, and draw more visitors to our unique Scottish landscapes.

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Visitor levies have been normal for decades across Europe, with popular destinations like Barcelona, Paris and Venice having implemented them successfully with no negative impact on visitor numbers.

Scotland should have benefited from this kind of funding years ago, but thanks to the Scottish Greens, we’re now making it a reality.

It’s a small charge for visitors coming to stay in our cities and towns, but it will deliver a huge funding boost for Scotland’s communities up and down the country. A visitor levy could change the dynamic of the Fringe in Edinburgh, enabling our services to increase capacity, tidy our streets, and deliver a better year-round experience for everyone – visitors, locals and workers alike.

Tourism shouldn’t be to the detriment of our communities, it should enhance them, provide opportunities for growth, and allow us to show the world how great Scotland is.