Edinburgh’s full tram service between the airport and Newhaven is set to return this weekend as Princes Street finally reopens following the devastating fire at the former Debenhams building.
Edinburgh Council has confirmed that Princes Street is expected to reopen to pedestrians and road traffic on Saturday, 29 August, almost seven weeks after the fire forced the closure of a key section of the city centre.
Edinburgh Trams will resume services along the entire route between Edinburgh Airport and Newhaven. City-centre bus diversions are also expected to end.The tram network has effectively been cut in two since the fire broke out in the early hours of 9 July.
Trams have continued to operate between Edinburgh Airport and West End, but no services have been able to run east of the closure through Princes Street, St Andrew Square and Leith to Newhaven.
The disruption has lasted through almost the entirety of Edinburgh’s busiest festival month and forced passengers travelling between the west and east of the city to use alternative bus services.
The problem was particularly difficult to resolve because Edinburgh’s tram depot is at Gogar, on the western side of the closure. When the fire happened overnight, the trams were in the depot and could not subsequently be moved through the cordoned-off section of Princes Street to operate a separate service in Leith and Newhaven.
Engineers had concluded that the former Debenhams building was in such a fragile condition that even vibrations from vehicles passing at very low speeds could pose a safety risk.
The fire caused severe damage to the upper structure of the building at 109–112 Princes Street, leaving specialists with a complicated operation to stabilise what remained while attempting to preserve its historic features.
Steelwork has now been installed to support the front façade, allowing the council to prepare for the road to reopen.
Some of the work has involved substantial pieces of material. Structural support beams installed at the site weigh around 300kg, vertical steel assemblies around 800kg and the largest piece of stone removed from one of the dormer windows weighed approximately 1.2 tonnes.
One eastbound traffic lane will initially become a temporary pedestrian walkway while stabilisation continues at the building.