Summerhall Arts chief pens plea for support after ‘partial demolition’ threat
Sam Gough of Summerhall Arts has requested supporters of the venue make their voices heard via AMA’s consultation website
The chief executive of Summerhall Arts, Sam Gough, has written an extensive letter requesting help following the acquisition of the Royal (Dick) Vet School from luxury house builder AMA. Below is the letter in full:
Summerhall, Edinburgh: a request for your support before Friday 23 October
Dear Supporter and friend of Summerhall,
I'm writing as CEO of Summerhall Arts to ask for help. I'll be brief, because time is short, we are working fast to get this message as widely spread as possible.
Summerhall, the former Royal (Dick) Vet School, has been a home for artists from across the world for fifteen years. Its new owner, AMA, a local luxury house builder, has now lodged plans for "partial selective demolition" of the 130,000 sq ft, seven-building site, with four layout options that bring in hotels, student flats and serviced apartments alongside a greatly reduced collection of studios and artistic spaces.
AMA's own architect has acknowledged there would need to be "some reduction" in arts space. The public consultation closes on 23 October, and a planning application follows in early 2027. The current plans show the loss or significant alteration of such special and historic spaces like the Anatomy Lecture Theatre and the Dissection room, Tech Cube 0, Old Lab as well as the much loved ‘Royal Dick’ bar.
We welcome investment. The buildings need it. But what is built is what artists inherit, and a promise is not a guarantee.
What is at stake
In 2025, the first year of our Creative Scotland Multi Year Funding, Summerhall Arts delivered:
- 57 performing artist residencies and development projects, supporting an estimated 100+ artists through free rehearsal, R&D and creative development space
- 41 early-stage projects showcased through our Surgeries programme, with 90+ artists testing live work in front of audiences and peers
- More than 120 free artist support and mentoring sessions
- A group show of 70+ visual artists, four fully supported eight-week solo shows and 13 associate exhibitions, all free to enter
In 2026 we are going further: paid space weeks with £500 and £1,000 bursaries, studio residencies worth up to £3,100 a week, and the new In Vitro Residency with the Hugo Burge Foundation. Emma Howlett's Aether began in our 2025 residency and went on to sold-out runs in Edinburgh and London. That pathway exists because of the rooms we work in.
As a Fringe venue, Summerhall is where audiences, critics and programmers come to find the festival's boldest new work. In 2026 we sold 81,366 tickets to 28,077 customers across 81 shows, up 14% on 2025, while the Fringe as a whole grew by 8%. Our shows won 8 of the 17 Fringe First awards for new work, almost half the total and more than any other venue, and 428 programmers and other industry professionals came to see 79 of our 81 shows.
Our audience is also considerably more international than the Fringe's. Of customers with a known postcode, 27% live in Edinburgh, 37% in Scotland and 78% in the UK as a whole, while 22% come from overseas, compared with about 15% across the festival. National showcases including Taiwan, South Korea, Quebec, Luxembourg, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia present work with us, and many of the shows that start here go on to tour internationally.
This is not only a Scottish story. More than 55% of the artists in our latest Fringe programme are international, in a Fringe of 3,649 shows from 71 countries. For many of them, Summerhall is where Edinburgh begins.
Take away the studios, rehearsal rooms and galleries and you take away the way in for artists from your country and region, as well as ours.
We have seen this before
This autumn more than 200 studios at St Margaret's House, Edinburgh, were told they have months to leave ahead of a sale. The Filmhouse was saved only by a wave of public support. Further afield, Berlin's Tacheles, an artists' house that drew some 400,000 visitors a year, closed in 2012 and its site went to apartments and shops. Cities rarely get these places back.
Summerhall is valued and well used as year-round community venue. An extensive six month consultation by the local Southside Council found that for the local community Summerhall was a priority and must be retained and the activity within it preserved. They see it as a safe, welcoming and accessible space and a vibrant part pf the community. Southside Community Council have committed to protecting Summerhall as a cultural, creative and community space. Please help us, help them do that.
What I am asking
For your continued support, firstly, please engage with the consultation before Friday 23 October. Secondly, do follow our socials @summerhallarts on Instagram, sign up to our mailing list on www.summerhallarts.co.uk. Then - help us with the next stage, we will know what that is once we have seen what the developers have modified, following the first round of feedback.
Do fill in the consultation, if you have not done so already, www.summerhallconsultation.co.uk by 23 October, saying what Summerhall has meant to you, your artists or your organisation and asking for arts spaces to be protected and guaranteed, not left as an aspiration. As well as the retention of Summerhall Arts as the arts provider with a viable space that allows the preservation of the arts at an affordable rent and a long lease.
I will be sharing the responses with Edinburgh Council Planners and councillors, the Scottish Government and Creative Scotland. Given how many people and artists Summerhall touches, I expect this will interest many people within your networks I would welcome you sharing this with them so that we can work together to try and secure Summerhall’s future.
Edinburgh's name as the world's festival city rests partly on places like Summerhall. Developers, like arts organisations, are remembered for what they leave behind, and I would much rather AMA be remembered as the owner who protected it.
Thank you for reading, and for anything you can do.
With best wishes,
Sam Gough,
Chief Executive of Summerhall Arts.