Marketing Edinburgh boss quits after council budget cuts row

The figurehead of the body charged with selling Edinburgh to the rest of the world has quit – two months after its public funding was cut by a third.

John Donnelly has resigned after five years at the helm of Marketing Edinburgh, which had £300,000 slashed from its budget in February.

He had been outspoken in his criticism of proposals to strip the body of almost all its subsidy from the local authority over the next two years.

Mr Donnelly had warned Edinburgh would be left “vulnerable” to economic decline, risked severing “critical pipelines” and claimed its efforts to attract inward investment, business conferences and film productions would be “severely compromised”.

In a letter to councillors in the run-up to its annual budget meeting, he also said the city faced becoming “inwardlooking and insular” if the cuts to his £890,000 budget went ahead. However, despite winning the support of marketing agencies and tourism bodies, an extensive lobbying campaign by Mr Donnelly was unsuccessful in reversing a proposed 89 per cent cut.

The council agreed to cut this year’s budget by a third, but ordered Mr Donnelly and his board, which is chaired by Edinburgh Airport communications director Gordon Robertson, to produce “a detailed strategy for transition to zero funding from the council”.

A statement issued on behalf of Marketing Edinburgh’s board said it was an “appropriate time for John to leave the business”.