The Poverty Line: 'We've always been an enclave of issues surrounded by wealth'

When it opened in 1898, the Madelvic factory was the first of its kind in the UK, producing electric broughams, an early version of the motor car where the driver sat outside exposed to the elements like the horse-drawn carriages that inspired its design. While manufacturing has long since ceased, the red brick building still stands, a shiny plaque on its wall the only obvious reminder of its industrial past. Now an important community hub, the building hosts yoga classes, art sessions, and meetings of those who care about the local area of Granton and wider north Edinburgh.

On a bitterly cold day in late November, local community stalwart Willie Black is giving me a tour, showing off some old sketches and black and white photographs of the area which line the walls, part of the Granton Archive Project. Next to an engraving of the old Granton quarry is a caption that details how local stone was used in the construction of Nelson’s Column in London in the 1840s to commemorate victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Trafalgar.

We’re here to talk about Granton’s £1.3bn regeneration which will see thousands of new homes built on the city’s largest brownfield site next to the blue Victorian gas holder which continues to loom large more than 120 years after it was first erected. Black jokes that while the character of the area may be changing, the area’s characters remain – just as they always have. A retired electrician, he’s just come from a union-organised demo at the Scottish Parliament protesting plans to close the Grangemouth oil refinery, somewhere he used to work, and wears a pin badge of the Palestinian flag on his quarter-zip jumper.

While Granton has a proud history, there are also darker stories to tell. We’re just a short walk from the Anchor Inn, the pub where 38-year-old Mark Webley was shot and killed on the street outside last Hogmanay. Webley, who had a history of involvement in gangland violence, had taunted his rivals to come and get him on social media in the hours before his death. Further back, in the 1980s, the nearby areas of Pilton and Muirhouse became notorious for heroin use, with the sharing of needles helping Edinburgh gain the entirely unwanted tagline of the Aids capital of Europe.

“We’re still living with some of the consequences of that,” says Black. “There’s still addiction, there’s obviously some criminality and we have young people without much of a future. We’ve still got some of the old problems that we always had on working class estates – whether that’s Wester Hailes, Craigmillar or ourselves – but historically we’ve always been surrounded by wealth. We were always a little enclave of issues.” 

An aerial view of Granton with the Anchor Inn in the foreground and the rest of Edinburgh in the distance | Alamy

According to the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, the tool used by the Scottish Government to chart levels of poverty across the country, the Granton of today is one of the most deprived parts of the capital. Zoom in on the online map and many of the area’s streets are coloured fiery red, indicating that the most deprived 10 per cent of the population live here. Zoom out and you’ll find areas coloured in dark blue, places like Trinity, Inverleith and Barnton, which despite lying just a short drive away are among the most affluent neighbourhoods in the country.

The most recent version of the SIMD dates from 2020 and measures deprivation across nearly 7,000 different areas. On income, employment, health, and education the area classed as Granton and Royston Mains is rated ‘1’, that is to say most deprived. It scores a two for housing and crime. But of the 6,976 parts of Scotland in total, this area – which is essentially a collection of just a few streets – is ranked 355 overall, meaning there are plenty of places worse off. Across Scotland as a whole, Greenock town centre is ranked most deprived, while Stockbridge, home to a farmers’ market and artisan bakeries and just 2.5 miles from Granton, is ranked 6,976. It’s important to note that while an area can be classed as deprived, that doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone living there is doing so in deprivation.

In Granton, the city council says the waterfront regeneration will become a “blueprint” for urban renewal across Scotland, with net zero homes, a new school and medical centre, and Europe’s largest coastal park all part of the vision. But Black can already see planners repeating some of the mistakes of the past. He uses the example of the nearby Muirhouse medical centre which has around 20,000 patients and is heavily oversubscribed even before the new homes are built.

“We need resources,” he says. “We need a new medical centre, we need schooling. When you go to the waterfront public consultation and you ask about the medical centre, the answer comes back that the NHS has suspended capital projects for two years.

“The image of the area will change – it will look more affluent [after the development]. But unless you fundamentally change the area, then history will always repeat itself. The social problems come from the disparity of wealth and income and the state retreating from our lives.”

The Scottish Government would doubtless deny the charge that it is withdrawing from people’s lives. While it took the SNP administration until earlier this year to belatedly declare a “housing emergency” after both Edinburgh and Glasgow councils had already done so, it has nevertheless pledged to make tackling poverty a key goal. First Minister John Swinney has promised to make eradicating child poverty in particular his government’s “single greatest priority”. But while there have been some successes, notably the weekly £26.70 Scottish Child Payment, which has won plaudits from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) and respected Oxford University academic Danny Dorling, a quarter of children will nevertheless spend this Christmas living in poverty. 

And on so many other metrics, things are going the wrong way. Figures published by the government earlier this year showed there were more than 33,000 homeless households in 2023/24, comprising over 38,000 adults and 15,000 children, a three per cent increase on the previous 12 months. According to the JRF, one in five Scots live in poverty and while life expectancy recovered slightly last year, it’s still lower than before the pandemic. 

Ahead of the Budget in late October, the government at Holyrood had accused its counterpart at Westminster of perpetuating Tory austerity. But while Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the biggest block grant for Scotland since the outset of devolution, including a £3.4bn increase in Barnett consequentials next year, on many other measures for tackling poverty, the new Labour government has proved to be a massive disappointment. Not only did it remove the Winter Fuel Payment for millions of pensioners, but it also refused to scrap the two-child benefit cap, a policy which has been blamed for pushing 10,000 children into poverty across the UK in the few short months that Keir Starmer has been in Number 10. The Scottish Government has said it wants to begin making benefit payments to families from 2026 – the year of the next Holyrood election –  to effectively scrap the cap north of the border. 

“We’re certainly living with the legacy of austerity,” says Professor Stephen Sinclair, chair of the Poverty and Inequality Commission, a non-departmental public body which advises the Scottish Government. “Danny Dorling has done calculations to show that children in the UK are shorter now than they were 10-15 years ago and shorter than children in countries such as Germany, which haven’t imposed the same level of austerity.

“While we still have things like the two-child limit and the benefit cap, while we still have poverty-inducing policies… I would say the people who are experiencing those policies are experiencing austerity. I very much hope that the UK Government, with its task force which is underway and its strategy which will be published in the spring, will address those particular policies and engage a more constructive assessment of our children’s future.”

The Anchor Inn where Mark Webley was shot dead on the street outside | Alamy

A new book by David Walsh, a senior lecturer in health inequalities at the University of Glasgow, and his colleague Gerry McCartney, a professor of wellbeing economy, describes the impact of austerity – introduced under Conservative Chancellor George Osborne – as “social murder”, a term used by Frederich Engels while observing the conditions of the urban poor in Manchester during the nineteenth century. The book, Social Murder? Austerity and life expectancy in the UK, argues that austerity policies have led to a decline in life expectancy and widening mortality inequalities, with more people dying younger and in larger numbers since 2010. Its authors argue that despite the recent change in government, austerity remains in place. 

On child poverty, in particular, Sinclair says there is a “moral case” for government to act. “Children aren’t responsible for their own circumstances, they don’t choose their parents, and they have no way of getting themselves out of poverty,” he says. “In that sense, they need help irrespective of whatever one might think about their parents’ behaviour or their choices. To inflict any punishment on children is an injustice, it’s wrong. And it’s avoidable – we have an abundance of food and resources. I think the moral case is enough but there are also real economic consequences of not tackling this.”

Speaking before finance secretary Shona Robison delivered her budget statement at Holyrood last week, Sinclair called for investment in childcare, affordable housing and reducing the cost of the school day by extending free school meals. But he said the introduction of a minimum income guarantee, something the government has previously consulted on, would be a “genuine safety net” for those impacted by poverty. A cross-party strategy group chaired by social justice secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville is currently exploring the issue further. Increasing the value of the Scottish Child Payment would be another important intervention, Sinclair said.

Back in Madelvic House, Black is showing me the building’s “archive”, essentially a large storeroom where box files sit gathering dust alongside an old art installation comprising sculpted heads of local figures such as activist Betty McVay and former MP and MSP Malcolm Chisholm. Black and other volunteers were instrumental in setting up the North Edinburgh Community Festival, which seeks to bring the arts to an area of the city typically untouched by the Fringe.

Indeed, Black is not shy in coming forward. When then work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith gave a speech at the George Hotel in Edinburgh in 2013, Black heckled him, calling him a “ratbag” as the TV cameras rolled. More than a decade on, he hasn’t revised his opinion of central government. 

An artist's impression of how the waterfront development will look | City of Edinburgh Council

“They’ve retreated from areas like this,” says Black. “When you go to them, whether it’s the Scottish Government or Westminster, the answer always comes back – we’ve not got the money. We need resources here; we need financial and political backing to eradicate poverty in all its manifestations.”

The insidious nature of that poverty makes itself known in a range of outcomes in Granton and places like it across Scotland – from reduced educational attainment to lowered life expectancy. If the political will to tackle it truly exists, then progress is likely to be slow and 
hard-fought.