Transforming a place

Where is the Causey

The Causey sits in the Southside Conservation area and covers West Crosscauseway from Nicolson Street to Chapel Street and Buccleuch Street, including the traffic island area.

Artist’s impression: Aga Mietkiewicz, Animation: Robert Motyka / Wee Dog Media

The change we want

Causey Development Trust is a charity committed to putting people back at the heart of The Causey, a street in Edinburgh’s Southside, by transforming it into a space that everyone can enjoy.

Currently dominated by vehicles and a redundant, unsightly traffic island, The Causey has the potential to be a fine civic space that draws attention to and respects its heritage.

By reconfiguring The Causey we will promote everyday walking and cycling while giving local people, students and visitors an attractive and accessible space that can be used for community-inspired events, neighbourliness, socialising and simply soaking up the historic surrounds.

What We Do

Since 2007 we have worked at a grassroots level to develop a transformative design for this historic but underused and unattractive space in Edinburgh’s Southside.

Our design is based on the aspirations and insights gathered from the local community and City of Edinburgh Council and is underpinned by our commitment to sustainability, greener and safer active travel and the wellbeing of local people and visitors.

Why Now

There has never been a better time to invest in the spaces around us. The global pandemic that began in 2020 has changed how we live, travel and interact and the pressure to reduce vehicle emissions has never been stronger. By supporting The Causey you are:

➡ Promoting walking, cycling and active travel

➡ Putting people at the heart of a community

➡ Promoting greener living

➡ Embracing sustainability

➡ Respecting its heritage

➡ Providing space for community events and neighbourliness

➡ Creating a better civic space at the heart of Edinburgh’s  Southside

 

For more information get in touch with us info@thecausey.org or visit our news section here

Where We’re At

➡ A design proposal for The Causey has been drawn up by Ironside Farrar Landscape Architects, based on local people’s ideas expressed in our community engagement. You can find this here.

➡To date, City Of Edinburgh Council’s application to Transport Scotland to fund the capital works necessary to transform The Causey into a fine civic space was unsuccessful. The reason given was that the proposed design does not currently meet the requirements of Transport Scotland’s Active Travel Infrastructure Fund.

CDT is committed to creating a fine public space at West Crosscauseway. The current increased amenity for local people and visitors, provided by attractive planters and temporary seating, is evident in the numbers of people using The Causey to rest and be neighbourly.

The Council noted in its public realm strategy, as far back as 2009, “Community driven projects can also play a major role in ensuring the strategy is comprehensive and inclusive. For example the Causey14, as part of the Six Cities Design Festival, saw architects in conjunction with the Southside Community Group, (the West Crosscauseway Association) temporarily close the area around West Crosscauseway to traffic to give the space back to public and pedestrian use, in order to ascertain how people reacted to the changed space. The Council is keen to explore this idea further and develop other demonstration projects with community groups.”

We continue to liaise with The Council to achieve, not a demonstration project, but a fully realised new public space.

Who We Work With

Messages of Support

Here’s what locals and supporters have to say.

I am really encouraged by local people stepping forward to improve their area. It shows how much green and open spaces are valued by the community and I am very much behind these initiatives.

Steve Burgess
Green councillor for Southside/Newington
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The Causey is the sort of effort to carve space for neighbourliness and community out of roads and traffic that is understood to be increasingly important to all of us. The locals who have made this effort deserve much respect: I only hope it inspires other communities, and the City in general, to make Causeys all over Edinburgh.

Malcolm Fraser
Architect
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The Saturday Sit Oot at the Causey grew very organically and has become a highlight in my week. A barren, ugly traffic island has, in my mind, blossomed into a valuable meeting place for friends, neighbours and passersby to discuss, listen, exchange, plan, reflect, learn, connect and bond. Each week I come away feeling energised, daring to hope for positive change in the future.

Kate Leiper
Artist and Illustrator, local resident
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I often pass through that junction; at the moment it is an unattractive, little used space for occasional traffic and I would love to see the space better utilised. I love your suggestion of making it more pedestrian and cycle friendly, and turning the unused space into a pleasant area that can serve the local community. Community and time outside are so important to people’s wellbeing.

Lucy Dixon
Counsellor & Psychotherapist, Local resident
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This looks amazing – such a transformation! Fingers crossed it happens. Often in the neighbourhood at weekends.

Holly Ennis
Researcher, cyclist
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This is the green walkable future we deserve!

Blair Burnett
MSc City Planning Graduate, Glasgow

Cannot wait to see my West Crosscauseway / The Causey street to be more welcoming to people instead of prioritising storage of cars, noise, danger & pollution. I wish to see more public seating, more trees and plants. And infrastructure for cyclists.

Robert Motyka
Projection artist, West Crosscauseway resident
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It’s hard to express how fully I support this project.

 Our shared spaces could be nourishing. They could give us, our children, our parents, the young, old, ill, well, rich, poor – everyone – a small opportunity to breath clean air. To meet with each other. To walk, ride a bike, look at a tree, hear each other, kick a ball, or hear a bird singing. They could embody the respect we have for each other.

But small inexpensive changes can quickly transform spaces, as countless cities around the world are finally beginning to recognise. 

 That’s why I support this project. 

Local Resident

Fast Facts

The Scots word ‘causey’ is from Old French caucie, a beaten way, and it means a road properly built and surfaced with metalling or pavings, or the making of one.

Crosscauseway is a street that historically links Causeyside (now Buccleuch Street) and the Pleasance and it is recorded in 1599 as having been “causeyed” giving the street its name: “Crosscausey”, later corrupted to “Crosscauseway”.

Sir Walter Scott, who grew up a stone’s throw from The Causey on George Square, mentions The Guse Dub, a spring and goose pond in the angle between West Crosscausey and Causeyside (now Buccleuch Street), in his childhood memories.

Robert Burns, Scotland’s famous bard, lodged at Buccleuch Pend or Entry in 1784. The original tenement was rebuilt in 2000 as affordable housing.

These two churches frame the historic space known locally as The Causey: The Chapel of Ease, now the home of The Orthodox Community of St Andrew – Edinburgh – B-listed and built in 1755-6 as an overflow for St Cuthbert’s, Lothian Road, has a tranquil secret graveyard housing several significant graves plus the unmarked grave of Deacon Brodie. Buccleuch and Greyfriars Church, C listed and dating from 1856, dominates the area with its towering steeple and has a significant hammer beam roof.

The Southside of Edinburgh is a Conservation Area lying on the edge of the World Heritage Site. The Causey lies within the Southside Conservation Area and is on the very edge of the World Heritage Site.