A full-scale review of the Edinburgh City Centre Management Company is set to be ordered tomorrow.

The probe is expected to lead to the winding up of the firm, set up by the previous Labour administration, amid concerns it has failed to deliver progress on improving the city centre.

The council ploughs around £250,000 a year into the company, which is also backed by a number of leading firms, including Boots and John Lewis. Its directors include representatives of the tourism, property, restaurant, and retail industries, while the council also has four representatives on the board.

The company has been charged with staging major events, instigating promotional campaigns for the city centre, and producing radical development proposals.

However, senior figures within the council and the business community have been dismayed at its performance, particularly over the lack of progress made in overhauling Princes Street, the shelving of a new fashion festival after just one year, and the delays in delivering revamps of the Grassmarket and St Andrew Square.

A number of the company's tasks – including running squads of litter-busters and creating official flyposting sites – have already been taken over by the council again. The local authority has also set up a separate taskforce to help deliver major new developments along Princes Street.

Cllr Jenny Dawe said: "There hasn't been any real progress made in terms of overhauling Princes Street and projects like the refurbishment of the Grassmarket and St Andrew Square have taken far too long to get to where they are.

"We didn't agree with the principle of setting up a company like this, as we believe the council can perform all the functions it has on its own, and more effectively."

Cllr Dawe said she had been approached by a number of firms raising concerns that plans to create a Business Improvement District risk failure if kept under the charge of the city centre firm.

Under the venture, first floated five years ago, firms would be balloted on whether they would pay an extra levy on their rates.

The money would help fund new festivals and events, street furniture, new marketing campaigns, flags and banners and extra litter clean-up squads. She said: "The Business Improvement District is extremely important for the city centre and it's vital it is not help up or put in any doubt."

David Nicholson, who chairs the Edinburgh City Centre Management Company's board of directors, said today: "The markets we run are actually hugely successful, it's very important that we are retained to maintain the public realm in areas like Castle Street and St Andrew Square, but it's also crucial that we retain responsibility for the BID.

"Its success will depend on it being kept independent from the council."

THE FACTS
The Edinburgh City Centre Management Company was launched by the city council in a blaze of publicity seven years ago. It was billed as a venture aimed at helping smarten up the city's image to compete better with the likes of Paris, Vienna and Barcelona.

Key aims of the company included creating special clean-up squads, having regular street markets and running major promotional campaigns to persuade shoppers to shun out-of-town shopping centres.

Within months the company unveiled ambitious plans to transform key parts of the city by blocking them off to traffic and creating continental-style piazzas. More controversial were the firm's plans for radical development along Princes Street and in the Gardens.

A promenade was to run beside the gardens with areas set aside for coffee stands, flower sellers and street entertainers. Few of the firm's plans have to come to fruition.