Maintain Stills’ concessionary let by issuing a new lease for Stills at the current rate of £16,000 p/a. This will allow Stills to continue to deliver its work from Edinburgh city centre and will avoid the damage to Stills’ programme of work that the proposed increase to £47,000 per year would cause.

On Friday 12th April the Herald newspaper published an article about the proposed rent increase faced by Stills and the impact this will have on the delivery of our programmes of work. We have been overwhelmed by the messages of support following publication of the article. Thank you!

Our lease negotiations are still ongoing and so we have set up this petition to harness your support as we think this will help during the next stages of our talks with the Council.



Stills is a registered charity and one of the longest established photography venues in the UK. It is the only dedicated public venue for photography in Edinburgh. For over forty years, Stills has been a venue where all can enjoy, experience and learn about photography.

This year we face an almost trebling of our rent, from £16,000 a year to £47,000, which poses a huge threat to our future. If we are unable to renegotiate this lease, staying on Cockburn Street and continuing to deliver our current programme of work will be unsustainable.



Our city centre location is crucial to making our work as accessible as possible – people travel from all over Scotland and further afield to access what we do, whether that's our exhibitions programme (which is always free), public-access photography production facilities, creative learning work or artist-led photography courses. Our work is unique and vital to Scotland’s cultural ecology. Stills makes a vital contribution to what makes Edinburgh and Scotland such a great place to live, work and visit.