Council chiefs are to clamp down on illegally placed key safes across Edinburgh following a slew of complaints from locals in one of the city’s most historic areas.
Residents in the Capital’s picturesque Dean Village were left furious when lockboxes, often used to store keys for apartments rented out on platforms including AirBnB, were drilled into a wall surrounding a children’s playground.
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The safes, which simply listed ‘Flat A’ and ‘Flat B’ as the addresses, were thought to be recent installations due to a light coating of dust on the pavement below - though it remains unclear when they were first set up.
Guests can retrieve keys for short-term lets from the boxes without interacting with the landlord renting the property online.
One neighbour blasted the “cheeky” holiday let owners for “irresponsibly damaging public property” after posting pictures of the lockboxes online.
The lockers have now been removed and replaced with a council notice demanding their owners contact the local authority to retrieve them.
At the time of writing, the keys remain unclaimed, but local authority chiefs have warned other key box holders they will not hesitate to seize possession of the safes if they are found to be illegally placed.
A City of Edinburgh Council spokesperson said: “It is standard practice to remove items that have been attached to public property such as walls or railings without prior permission.
"We will ask for items to be removed and if that is not done we will detach them.”
AirBnB currently lists more than 20 rooms, apartments and entire homes for short-term let in the Village, with prices per night ranging upwards from £75.
