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Thousands of people have signed a petition calling for Edinburgh Council to scrap all contracts with Underbelly, the official organisers behind the world-famous Hogmanay celebration and Christmas market.

Underbelly came under fire after it was revealed that the Christmas market in Princes Street Gardens did not have planning permission to operate and only received a building warrant two days before it was due to open.

They also failed to apply for permission for last year’s event, without Edinburgh City Council realising.

The company were later criticised for telling residents, who live on city centre streets within the Hogmanay "arena", that they must apply for access to their homes during the Street Party.

However, Underbelly and the council insisted that the access arrangements have remain unchanged from previous years.

The petition, named "The people of Edinburgh don’t want Underbelly", is demanding an inquiry and suggests that those involved in "circumventing legislation" should face consequences.

Brian McNeil, who created the petition, wrote: "[Underbelly] [are] supposed to be 'Events Specialists' but all people in Edinburgh see is a company the normal rules don’t apply to.

"They can ‘forget’ to apply for planning permission. They can decide when inconvenient traditions get in their way. They can decide who can come and go in the city centre. They can even charge people to jump in the sea on a public beach."

He added: "Please, reclaim the dignity of our city from the corporation currently treating it like a urinal."

The petition has already racked up over 2,000 signatures, with one supporter writing: "Underbelly have consistently put commercial interests above the interests of the people of Edinburgh and been allowed to get away with it."

A spokesperson for Underbelly told Edinburgh Live: "We remain disappointed that there are a number of inaccuracies and mistruths being circulated on social media about both Underbelly and the winter festivals.

"We do of course acknowledge real and legitimate concerns voiced around Edinburgh’s Christmas and Hogmanay and we look forward to working closely with the City of Edinburgh Council, Edinburgh residents and other stakeholders to review the events and to look at where and how we can make improvements; and also to contributing to the public consultation on the future of Edinburgh’s winter festivals from 2022.

"We are proud of the fact that our production of both Edinburgh’s Christmas and Edinburgh’s Hogmanay has saved the local taxpayer £1 million a year compared to the previous contract and projects to save over £5 million over its five-year lifetime."

Taking to Twitter before Hogmanay, Adam McVey said that councillors must "listen" and "respond" to residents' complaints, which feed into Edinburgh's wider debate regarding the size and scale of festivals and tourism in the Scottish capital.

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